NakedEye Ensemble - A Series of Indecipherable Glyphs (2022) [Official Digital Download 24/96]

Lancaster, Pennsylvania based NakedEye Ensemble, directed by Ju-Ping Song, releases A Series of Indecipherable Glyphs, a collection of works for chamber ensemble that take inspiration from rock music. NakedEye's instrumentation lends itself to the association, featuring searing electric guitar parts, growling saxophone solos, and dynamic percussion. Framed around an arrangement of Frank Zappa's Sinister Footwear II, NakedEye presents dynamic works by Molly Joyce, Richard Belcastro, Whitney George, Aaron Jay Myers, Rusty Banks, and Nick Didkovsky.

On their new release, A Series of Undecipherable Glyphs, Lancaster, Pennsylvania based NakedEye Ensemble focuses on mixed ensemble works influenced by rock music. From works by Zappa to Aaron Jay Myers to Molly Joyce, NakedEye presents music that is invariably shaped by the inclusion of electric guitar, saxophone, and percussion. The result is an album that toggles between music that conjures the spirit of 70’s jazz/rock fusion and works that have more of an atmospheric, post-minimalist sensibility.

The album opens with Nick Didkovsky’s Amalia’s Secret, a collection of ten miniatures whose musical material is derived from an automatic music generation software Didkovsky designed called Nerve2.hmsl. Twelve musical parameters are established and chance operations and statistical formulas populate the fields, resulting in related but independent instrumental parts. The piece is anything but mechanical however, as off-kilter rhythmic loops, conversational duos, metal inspired distorted riffs, hypnotic ostinatos, and meditative textures combine into a balanced suite of contrasting sounds. The music in Frank Zappa’s Sinister Footwear II appeared in several contexts in his output, including as a part of a three movement ballet and within the live set of his touring bands in the late 70s. Zappa’s music calls for a unique kind of mastery, of rhythmic complexity in a groove oriented, driving rhythmic context. The taut unison rhythms, overlapping percolating loops, and whammy bar infused guitar solo in Mike Bitts’ 2015 arrangement for NakedEye capture the enthusiasm for eclecticism that characterized Zappa and his cohort.

Tracklist:
01. Didkovsky: Amalia’s Secret: I. An Especially Fine Dress Rag
02. Didkovsky: Amalia’s Secret: II. Amalia, Hanging in a Painting
03. Didkovsky: Amalia’s Secret: III. Two Heads, Sitting Together, Snapping the Dreams of Your Sap
04. Didkovsky: Amalia’s Secret: IV. Swallow the Neck of the Guest Who Hisses When You Pass
05. Didkovsky: Amalia’s Secret: V. Amalia’s Secret (Modelled After the One for Your Parents)
06. Didkovsky: Amalia’s Secret: VI. The Smallest Glimmer Disturbs Them
07. Didkovsky: Amalia’s Secret: VII. A Weak Little Gentleman, Gazing, Too Dumb to Wonder
08. Didkovsky: Amalia’s Secret: VIII. The Letter Opened, the Bottle Broken
09. Didkovsky: Amalia’s Secret: IX. Shamefaced Smiles and the Back of Frailty
10. Didkovsky: Amalia’s Secret: X. All Debts Owed Paid, She’d Survive This Too
11. Zappa: Sinister Footwear II (Arr. M. Bitts)
12. George: (These Hands) Hold Nothing
13. Banks: Dum Spectas Fugio
14. Joyce: Less is More
15. Myers: Strabismus
16. Belcastro: Nepetalactone (2021 Version)


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