Other Music (NY city coolest music store-February 2007)
13-02-2007
It's hard to classify just what Christa Pfangen is doing -- as equal parts free improvisation and avant-folk with the occasional electro-acoustic interjection, they sometimes sound like the acoustic alternate reality of Ian Williams and Kevin Shea's Storm and Stress. By now, you've probably already figured out that Christa Pfangen is not one person. Actually she's two, namely Italians Mattia Coletti and Andrea Belfi, on "guitars, drums, voices, objects, and electro-acoustic devices" as the liner notes have it. They may have taken the name, Christa Pfangen, as a tribute to Nico (it was her given name) but their music couldn't have less in common with the late icon. Watch Me Getting Back the End is a nice enigma; while it manages the organic feel of free improvisation, it is hard to imagine the rich complex of sounds on these tracks being done by just two people without serious overdubs, but at the same time, the sounds and synchronicities rise and fall so naturally and spontaneously here that its equally hard to imagine the parts being too premeditated. The drumming is really exceptional, equally capable of conjuring a trap kit falling down a flight of stairs, chime and cymbal atmospherics, or turning rock solid pulse on a dime, while the guitars weave not quite interlocking patterns and acoustic washes amongst a din of overloading circuits, feedback squeals, and other electrical sounds. Subtle vocals, often two voices in unison, provide a bit of warmth -- an essential human element in the sometimes chaotic mix of sounds. What is perhaps most impressive is Coletti and Belfi's collective ability to balance it all into a rich and engaging whole.
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Andrea Belfi
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