A Very Different Kind of GardenYOUNGER readers who pick up the self-titled debut album from Sydneysiders Avantgarden will hear Primus for sure, Morphine too, and a few other contemporary exploratory bands but to these old ears there’s a lot of Zappa in there, King Crimson, stuff like that. It’s definitely out there.
“THERE were a lot of those influences in a way”, Chris Rambling admits, “but there are a lot of classical influences as well. I actually arranged it all, wrote every note except for the drums and solos. In my early stages of playing I became very interested in classical guitar, so I started to listen to a lot of contemporary composers as well as a lot of Bach, I listened to a lot of Bartok and Messiaen (a major Zappa influence), and I’m still very close to those musics”
AND that explains the extraordinary time changes, tonal explorations, dazzling arrangements and the use of trombone as a lead as well as ensemble instrument. There’s a breadth of musical vision that we haven’t seen on Australian recordings, outside the jazz scene, since the progressive rock days, though we’ve been getting hints from the likes of Trout Fishing and Freudian Trip. Then there is the breathless lyrical avalanche, addressing some pretty major contemporary issues in a profound yet often witty fashion.
“THE lyrics are usually written after the music and it can take months before suddenly something will pop up in my mind that’ll just be a catchy thing that seems relevant and from there it will take off. I don’t think ‘I want to write about this or that’. It’s whatever takes me at the time, so it’s not contrived. I guess a lot of these things come from my own psyche, how I’m affected personally by things , I can really see everything around me deteriorating rapidly. It’s a bit like what Zappa was saying about death from nostalgia. Once we were nostalgic about what happened 50 years ago, then 20 years ago, then 10, then 2 years ago until it eats itself away somehow. Progress, like a lot of things in life today, has lost its meaning. And for people to maintain some dignity in the face of multinational controls on society that we’re experiencing at an accelerating pace is increasingly important. Lifestyles for instance can be manipulated so easily and rapidly by the media we have become a commodity and multinationals have learned to manipulate rebellious groups to their own ends.”
SO there’s innovation, groove and anarchy in Avantgarden music- and the virtuoso trombone of James Greening to boot, an internationally respected Sydney-based jazz musician who has been so blown away by Rambling’s ideas he’s not only guested on the album but will be providing the hottest horn parts in town with Avantgarden live.
-Drum Media (Australia)