Jeph Jerman's Quarry review

 Thanks to Frans de Waard at Vital Weekly for the kind words about Jeph's "Quarry!"

The music uses field recordings Jerman did at Antelope Hill in Arizona. The site has been used by Native Americans as a source for stone used to make milling implements, and on the site, there are "many heavily patinated boulders displaying petroglyphs, ancient to modern". Jerman was looking for a boulder made by J.J. Glanton, a notorious scalp hunter. On his trail on the hill site, Jerman made photographs and recordings, using the stones on the site and, I assume, later on, he worked with those sounds. I might be wrong, of course, but I don't think these are the recordings as he made them. In 'Three' (the first track on the CDR) there are also some electronic sounds to be heard. But by and large, the music is 'acoustic', as we have come to know Jerman's music in the last twenty or so years. Working with elements from nature, rubbing stones, breaking sticks and crushing leaves, but also man-made material (fences, barbed wire) which I would think are heavily layered by him, and perhaps looped in an organic mass of sounds. As said, with perhaps a few additional electronics. This is not ambient music, nor pure field recordings. These works are interesting, complex pieces of soundscapes that deal with a location-based concept. Words, images and music are connected and amplify the meaning of it all. It is all around fascinating trip. At times, it all may sound so 'easy', but upon closer inspection, you realize it is not. A work of art!