Post-Alarmist

Some of you jaded turkeys may be convinced that I'm so obsessed with Eva Saelens that if she were to belch in the studio for 40 minutes, I'd call it a work of genius (hmm...maybe so). But in this case, her work on the Post-Alarmist project is worth checking out. Eva, aka Inca Ore, was in a Portland, Ore. collective called Alarmist, along with Argumentix (James Squeaky), Ghost to Falco (Eric Crespo), and Tunnels (Nick Binderman). On this compilation, the four of them get together to offer spoken-word poetry, tenor saxophone squonkings, and random noises and hip-hop profundities that rank in the best of Inca's work. Yep, 2009 is off to a good start in music, and this is the type of project that should be emulated by others.

(P.S. I didn't take along the video camera, but got to see banjo virtuoso Bela Fleck play with Abigail Washburn and Sparrow Quartet Thursday night. Abigail is a Colorado College graduate who has mixed Mandarin-language folk songs with bluegrass and chamber music. Her collaborators on cello and violin (Ben Sollee and Casey Driessen) are chamber-trained musicians who play modernist classical with a bluegrass sensibility. There is a connection here with Post-Alarmist - quartets from another dimension.)