Wayne Horvitz - Dinner At Eight
Wayne Horvitz
This New Generation
1986
In what appears to be a re-release of much of Dinner at Eight (1985) with some extra tracks.
So this starts with a short bit that sounds (like many of th synthesized drum parts) as very inspired by Steve Reich. It is a good beginning, and most of this album avoids a lot of 80s dweeby trappings. Sometimes though, as in the koto and new wave analog synth boredom of True, or the minimalist sax-in-the-city of Extra Extra it falters. Horvitz is better when he veers closer to aggressive and uptempo weirdness, as is the case of the subterranean tweak-out of Conjunction for C.B. and especially 3 Questions. These Hard Times reminds me of some kind of alternate reality backing track for something on SOLAR records. At heart this is avant-noisy jazz of the NYC downtown variety as it was emerging during the period.
The best part of this for me is Bill Frisell six-stringery on Gravity Falls, the garish noise of Short of Breath, and the aforementioned 3 Questions. And while there is better stuff of the kind out there, this has some good moments worth scoping out.
