Burt Ivory and Loose Wires

Album Review

There are times when composers write for prepared instruments and the resulting music becomes little more than an inventory of sounds that the altered devices can then make. Despite its title, which draws attention to the deconstruction of her instruments, Annie Gosfield's Burnt Ivory and Loose Wires manages to be much more than a showcase for technical noodling. A well-developed, often beautiful microtonal series of pieces for altered pianos, sax, percussion, sampler, and guitar, the album shows off the spacy influence and sense of whimsy in artists like Sun Ra while exploring new depths in experimental composition. Rarely minimal and always tightly executed, Burnt Ivory and Loose Wires shows off a depth and continuity in writing that many experimental artists have yet to achieve.