released simultaneously with «analogues», «drums and metals» showcases one side of drummer/experimental musician jason kahn -- his acoustic side. this album contains six pieces for solo percussion involving no electronics whatsoever. each piece limits the drum kit to a few items, as little as one in «hi hat cymbals,» up to five in «bass drum + snare drum + hi hat cymbals + bell + disc» and «bass drum + snare drum + floor tom + hi hat cymbals + turine.» these compositions are based on repetitive patterns, beats if you like, although the term doesn’t faithfully translate what is happening. kahn does establish minimal grooves and the rhythmical quality of the music is undeniable. the basic motif slowly evolves and shifts as the percussionist adds or subtracts an instrument. the resulting effect is of an art that stands somewhere between the atavistic or primitive (a ritualistic essence emanates from it) and a form of avant-garde minimalism that recalls the «selected percussion» of guenter mueller and taku sugimoto’s use of ultra-simple tonal guitar lines. one could also draw similarities with tony buck’s repetitive but ever-changing drum patterns in the australian trio the necks. sound engineer (and famous record producer) bob drake recorded the drums up close, allowing your ears to catch every detail. a good, surprising album, «drums and metals» needs to be heard in correlati to «analogues» in order for the listener to get kahn’s full picture.
>francois couture, all-music guide, 11.2002

drums and metals is a relatively short disc (clocking in at just over 37 minutes) of six compositions for drumset and metal objects. a very minimal rhythm opens up the disc: the slow, deliberate clanging of a bell is accompanied by vibrations and shuffles of sound from a snare drum that bear an uncanny resemblance to waves crashing on the shore, getting louder and louder as you approach them. track two introduces a pounding and driving rhythm on bass drum, snare drum and floor tom, accompanied by the simple rhythm of a bell which then takes over when the pounding rhythm disappears. it's only a matter of minutes, though, before this rhythm builds upon itself introducing a much more ornate rhythmical pattern. this is a characteristic of the disc as a whole. what at first seems primitive and simple finds a way to open up, to expand and metamorphose into something more resembling a butterfly than a caterpillar, its wings filled with fine details yet still maintaining its simple compositional structure. frequencies and finely tuned vibrations become a part of these compositions in such a way that i've never heard before. this is music which begs for the listener's participation; listening, i'll be tapping a more ornate pattern in time to its often minimal rhythms. a very powerful recording.
analogues is much different from the first disc, and at first it doesn't seem to be the work of a drummer/percussionist. these five pieces were constructed around samples of acoustic drums, metal objects, shortwave radio and field recordings, with no harddisk editing or sequencing. the first track is for me the most remarkable here. abstract bass tones and frequencies pulsate, ebb and flow through the piece with a phenomenal impact. this is the kind of sound i love to turn up so loud that it replaces the space around me, the very air in my lungs. just brilliant. other highlights for me include "piano2", which is an exercise in higher frequency harmonics, again using waves of sound and abstract tones. a dark, dense atmosphere in the third track called "skipping" accompanies some metal clanging and an evolving rhythm, which then merges into strange and unsettling sounds from a shortwave radio. the rest of the disc shifts from dense layers and waves of sound to bizarre collages of abstract audio textures.
with these two discs Jason Kahn has succeeded in producing music with immeasurable depth and detail that captures the listener's attention, provoking both physical and intellectual responses. these are two surprising and beautiful records that come highly recommended.
>incursion publishing

solo percussion records have long been considered the very apotheosis of masturbatory, self-congratulatoiry nonsense which musicians sometimes go in for rather too much for most listeners' linkings. we will happily, unquestioningly buy solo albums by pianists, guitarists, even saxophonists, but what can a drummer do for an hour, alone, except show off their chops? needless to say, such talk is terribly unfair, and percussion has come on a long way, at least in avant circles.
jason kahn has also turned in a rather short album -- something we're very much in favour of here, what with so many labels choosing to spoil half an hour's worth of good music with another half hour of dull padding -- but these forty minutes pack a very different kind of punch. where sabatini is clearly coming from the free jazz end of the improv spectrum, kahn here sounds like a classic minimalist, playing with discipline rather than verve.
the music here seems most interested in exploring apparently simple pulsations, mostly at a fast tempo, utilising a more or less restricted range of timbres. kahn does play very evenly, but whereas these tracks might be dull as electronic music they come sparkling to life as the unavoidable variations in sound and phrasing emerge. like a mondrian painting seen in the flesh, one isn't impressed by the perfections so much as the irregularities, the rich variety rather than the uniform gloss. that makes this music enormously appealing, despite its simple content; track six, played only on hi-hat cymbals, draws a shifting, whirling palette of colours from the drummer's emanuensis, calling to mind, of all people, the mighty max roach. brave things to release, then, solo percussion albums. few people like them enough to seek them out specifically, and often they're seen as a musician's calling-card and little more.
both of these present releases, however, are full of intelligence and altogether devoid of the nightmarish riffing which so often characterises the drum solo. one suspects they won't sell too many of these,but those who pick them up will be glad they did.
>musings

drums and metals: this composition displays a personal manner of constructing acoustic elements based in a minimalistic aesthetics which reiterates and insists on a single element, thus draining all the coloration and meaning from it. jason kahn here creates a work for the realm of a percussion solo divided into six separate spaces, each of them presented in an individual and disconnected from the rest compartment.
>hurly burly

proveniente come pierre berthet dal giro di arnold dreyblatt, ma noto soprattutto per le pubblicazioni a nome repeat in duo con toshimaru nakamura (il lora temporary contemporary é stata una delle rivelazioni dell’anno passato), jason kahn pubblica ben due cd per la propria etichetta cut. in drums and metals il nostro smembra letteralmente i ferri del mestiere, in qualche modo reinventando la figura del percussionista. i singoli pezzi del drum set sono dunque utilizzati in una fantasiosa operazione di virtuosismo discreto nella mobilità di aguzzi picchiettii, ripetitività tribale, rarefatti rintocchi, minimalismo d.o.c. e finanche progressioni techno (la coda di bass drum + snare drum + hi hat cymbals + bell + disc strappa letteralmente della sedia). radio e registrazioni on-ssite si affiancano invece ai suddetti strumenti in analogues, insinuante frangersi di suoni implosi e soffocati flussi minimal-ambient nella definizione di partiture dalla più accentuata riflessività.
>rumore

jason kahn limits his approach on drums and metals to simple percussion and the creation of an uniform sonic environment. in effect, he aims to create for each of the six pieces an ambience more or less hypnotique through the repetitive use of bells, cymbals, various drums...a bit like six short "drummings" from steve reich, whose more minimal compositons for percussion, though also alluring, achieve a greater density through the use of more instruments. analogues maintains a similairly hypnotique approach, close to the work of repeat but with the advantage of sparseness and an atmosphere of disengagement created through the use of electronics, shortwave radios and diverse oscillations which modify and transform the contribution of the drums.
>revue & corrigée

before relocating to europe in 1990, us-born jason kahn drummed with the punk-tinged, post-jazz groups universal congress of and cruel frederick. in berlin then zurich he threw himself into the deep end of the free improv pool, playing with the likes of david moss, evan parker, christian marclay,sainkho namtchylak and johannes bauer. he has worked with otomo yoshihide and sachiko m during trips to japan, and repeat, his duo with guitar/electronics manipulator toshimaru nakamura, is about to issue a third cd. kahn was also, from 1994-98, a member of arnold dreyblatt's band of overtone-teasers, the orchestra of excited dtrings. with such a diverse history, one might expect his solo cds to be scattergun projects, but they're not. nor are they chopsy drum-fodder, likely to appeal only to fellow skin-bashers.
the six compositions on drums and metals are, feldman-fashion, named after the instruments employed on each track. 'snare drum + bell' features a bell, hieratically tolled, and as each toll decays there's a rustle of activity on the snare drum. the articulation of the snare is indistinct; it sounds like someone panning for gold, or perhaps a distantly recorded rain stick. progressively, as the snare gets louder, it is joined by a buzzing screech as a resonator is touched lightly to the surface of the bell. the snare-work gradually reduces in volume, and when it becomes barely distinguishable the track ends. simple, stark and very, very effective.
minimalism - and not just of the dreyblatt variety - has obviously had an impact on kahn's music. he makes sparing use of phase-shifts, and throughout the cd emphasis is placed on repetitive rhythmic patterns, especially pulses and waves. kahn doesn't foreground human agency, how a sound has been made; he focuses attention on sound itself, its timbral qualities, its duration, its relationship to other sounds and their placement in space. sometimes he establishes a repetitive figure on two or three surfaces then gradually alters their timbral characteristics, and when he reaches an impasse he seamlessly shifts the rhythmic play to one or more new surfaces, allowing the timbral activity to be continued. the scope for improvisation on this cd appears to be modest. drums and metals is very much the work of a composer, and it benefits enormously from kahn's conceptual focus and skilled execution.
>avant reviews

jason kahn , who in the 1980's drummed with "universal congress of" and cruel fredeick, from 1994-98 with arnold dreyblatt's the orchestra of excited strings, and since two years with toshimaru nakamura as patner in the minimal duo repeat, has just reased two solo recordings. drums and metals (cut 003) concentrates on the individual parts of the drumset--snare drum, bass drum, floor tom, hi hat cymbals and bells--and creates an atmosphere of minimal sound landscapes resulting from recurring ostinato patterns. the cd unites two aspects of minimalism: reduction and repetition. a certain degree of monotony cannot be avoided but is more than offset by a sustained attention to melody and color. kahn's handwork approaches a machine-like quality, yet manages to retain a human touch as the playing tends to always fall short of outright perfection.
>bad alchemy

'drums and metals' is the total opposite of 'analogues', as it deals with rhythm. again long pieces, six in total, and per track the cover tells you which parts of drums are used hi-hat, snare, floor tom etc. again highly minimal music but played with a lot of energy. steady beats, stapled onto eachother, with bells, and it's overtones, as the disturbing factor.
>frans de waard, vital weekly

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