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In
the days of Bach, Brahms, and Beethoven, composers used vernacular
rhythms and tune styles to create something transcendentally new.
That seems to be missing in much contemporary music. But Carla
Kihlstedt and her 2 Foot Yard band merge fusion jazz, rock, Bulgarian-style
vocals, Felliniesque vignettes, quirky Laurie Anderson-type currents,
and other world, folk, and pop streams into a new sound that inventively
straddles the classical and vernacular worlds without compromise
to either side. Kihlstedt is a monster virtuoso on numerous instruments,
a truly original songwriter, and an inventive, singular artist
on a par with Arto Lindsay. If classical music has any hope of
connecting with modern audiences, Kihlstedt’s battle charge
will point the way.
Stereophile
Magazine
Records To Die For
“Carla Kihlstedt: 2 Foot Yard”
February 2004 Vol. 27 No. 2
By Daniel Buckley
The
violinist in connoisseur favorites the Tin Hat Trio (whose recent
Ropeadope album, The Rodeo Eroded, hit the Top Jazz Albums chart),
Carla Kihlstedt makes her solo debut with this head-spinning collection
that melds classical virtuosity, folk soul, and pop imagination.
The engaging, invigorating set of miniatures shows off her talents
not only as an instrumentalist but as a compellingly individual
vocalist/songwriter/arranger. Faux folk songs rub up against the
real thing, moonlit lullabies vie with disonant reels, and words
and tunes linger in the memory for days. The ultra-hip centerpiece
is a visionary cover of the poignant Carter Family staple “50
Miles,” a track that alone should make Kihlstedt a star
beyond the avant-garde.
Billboard
February 15, 2003
“Carla Kihlstedt: 2 Foot Yard”
By Bradley Bambarger
If
he were still alive today, what would Hungarian composer Béla
Bartók be writing? One possibility is that he’d be
writing fan letters to Carla Kihlstedt, and offering his services
if she ever needed a piano player. At the very least, Bartók
would get a kick from the opening track on Kihlstedt’s remarkable
new album: “Empty Cupboard” lurches through a driving
seven-beat like a drunken peasant after dark, viola, cello and
drums supporting harsh, close harmony vocals with an East European
twang. By the time the dense, cunning harmonic sense has worked
its way to the song’s glorious closing chord, we are still
only two minutes into the album.Kihlstedt unleashes a torrent
of short songs full of ideas. “Rooting For The Shy Librarian”
pits a breathy, Björk-like vocal against astringent backing
vocals, over a rhythm track largely built from breath noises.
The chilly, sophisticated love ballad “Gone” is indeed
gone well before two minutes are up, replaced by the concisely
furious acoustic punk of “Flash Flood.”
The album doesn’t relax until the Scandinavian landscape
of “Last Resort,” the violin melody ringing out as
if across a frozen river. Kihlstedt contributed to Tom Wait’s
Alice, and the rude blues of “Peel” recalls Waits’s
world. As does “When Will Tomorrow End,” a quavering,
old timey vision of heaven played on the slithery trumpet violin.Kihlstedt
is a classically trained violinist with technique to burn. From
her San Francisco base she has played with Derek Bailey, Mr. Bungle
and John Zorn’s Cobra. She is a founding member of the acoustic
Tin Hat Trio and art rockers Sleepytime Gorilla Museum. The violin/cello/drums
line-up of 2 Foot Yard roots her music in a classical colouring,
but the songwriting strays all over the place, from the ethereal
delicacy of “On Waking” to the larynx-shredding “Flinch,”
a PJ Harvey-type tantrum about insomnia. There’s even the
hypnotic “50 Miles,” a Gillian Welch-like folk anthem
about how much elbow room there will be in heaven.Kihlstedt has
a remarkable musical range, which she unifies through sheer force
of personality. Much of her playing is extreme, but it’s
disciplined extremism that never sprawls. This is a rich, accomplished
album from a musician in a hurry, given that a fine song like
“Gone” would still be concise at twice its length.
Wire
Adventures In Modern Music
“Carla Kihlstedt: 2 Foot Yard”
Issue 231 May 2003
By Clive Bell
Carla
Kihlstedt, the violinist for the Tin Hat Trio, steps out to create
her first solo project on Two Foot Yard. Ms. Kihlstedt seems equally
comfortable in classical, jazz, pop, and the avant-classical/jazz/pop
arenas. The ultimate compliment paid is to call her the female
equivalent of Tom Waits. Like Waits she is a master in the vignette,
painting 20 short scenes or sketches for listeners. As with her
work in Tin Hat Trio, the music choice is eclectic, but not decidedly
catholic to alienate. Kihlstedt, who has performed with John Zorn,
Phillip Glass, Eugene Chadbourne, Tracy Chapman, and Mr. Bungle,
can swing rhythmically or pulse outward into free territories.
The twenty tracks wander between chamber classical pieces, twisted
children’s songs, blues, and pieces of the 20th century
that get reconfigured in to our 21st perspective. She gives a
nod to Phillip Glass on “Rooting For The Shy Librarian”
with a tousled and unkempt Glass-like repetition. There is a tiny
operetta “Gone,” a scary child’s song “Trampolina,”
an attractive blues “Tough Guy,” and a sleep-deprived
rant “Flinch.” Is this the music Tori and Alanis are
trying to make? I’m not sure Kihlstedt’s music is
made for mass consumption, but like the Tin Hat Trio, she doesn’t
back away from the accessibility. Her folk tune “50 Miles”
(of elbowroom) is attractive like the music of Suzanne Vega and
Michelle Shocked. This new bohemian is an unorthodox song generator.
She honors the pre-beat poet Ken Patchen putting music to his
words and coils her own poetry around a wide array of sounds.
Her trio never seems to repeat approaches here, varying the music
throughout. Kihlstedt’s music is pure theatre.
All
About Jazz
2 Foot Yard
Carla Kihlstedt | Tzadik
By Mark Corroto
If
anyone can make the avant-garde friendly, Carla Kihlstedt can
-- she has a résumé that musicians twice her age
would envy. Her band Tin Hat Trio has released three critically
acclaimed albums, she's played with heavyweights like John Zorn,
and major orchestras have commissioned her to compose new works.
Through it all, she's remained musically adventurous yet aware
of her audience.
This, her solo debut, is a remarkably assured, swaggering release;
it ambles through avant-garde territory without getting bogged
down. Its expansive yet rarefied atmosphere undercuts almost any
adjective a critic could use. The release is at times accessible
and at times inaccessible, classical-sounding yet rooted in contemporary
music. Tracks are generally quite short and impressionistic, but
this is a mature and (for the most part) fully realized album.
It's rare for such an excellent musician to also be an accomplished
composer, but Kihlstedt is -- and she uses that skill to weave
familiarity and discomfort in ways that can be heartbreaking.
She puts her finger directly on the heart of pathos in the minimalist
"Last Resort." The quickly sketched story of displacement
feels authentic, and it lingers. The story could be happening
in a village in Eastern Europe two centuries ago, or yesterday
in the United States.
The heart of the album -- and some of the best songs -- centers
on love and loss. Kihlstedt has an eerie way of evoking children's
nursery rhymes and turning them into hymns of disappointment.
The broken love story of "History" uses the old "K-I-S-S-I-N-G"
rhyme to startlingly good effect. That song is buttressed by "Another
Day," one of the most gorgeous songs on the album. Kihlstedt's
violin phrasing seems to have migrated to her voice; the subtlety
of her singing is remarkable for an almost entirely untrained
singer.
Perhaps the biggest revelation of Two Foot Yard is the instrumentation.
How often do most of us sit down and listen to the violin? Or
violin and voice, for that matter? The tight ensemble of violin,
cello, and percussion is effective and musically dynamic; for
three people they make an awful lot of racket. The group enables
Kihlstedt to reach into the realms of rock 'n' roll, jazz, and
classical with equal dexterity. It doesn't always make for an
easy listen -- a few tracks may make you want to tear your hair
out -- but as with the best genre-bending, avant-garde work, the
rewards are clearly worth it.
East
Bay Express
"Carla Kihlstedt: Two Foot Yard"
By Sarah Bardeen
originally published: February 5, 2003
I'd
heard, and liked, Bay Area violinist/vocalist Carla Kihlstedt
a couple of times before — notably at last fall's Earshot
Festival with the Tin Hat Trio and at the Vancouver International
Jazz Festival, where she did a terrific workshop and played free-improv
with pianist Paul Plimley. But I was totally unprepared for the
dazzling beauty and quirky excellence of her debut album as a
leader, "2 Foot Yard" (Tzadik).
Imagine Laurie Anderson with for-real violin chops; a voice that
soars from singer/songwriter pathos to grunge-rock wail; and gently
off-kilter art songs that recall Charles Ives.
Then again, you don't have to imagine it, because you can hear
Kihlstedt with her trio (also called 2 Foot Yard) on a dynamite
triple bill, "The Family Van Tour," Thursday at the
Sunset Tavern, in Ballard... Kihlstedt's trio plays a set and
also backs up Bay Area singer/songwriters Lisa Fay ("El Fay"),
lately of the group Seven Year Bitch, and Carla Bozulich, known
for her work with the Geraldine Fibbers and collaborations with
Willie Nelson, Beck, Lydia Lunch and others. Guitarist Nels Cline
(married to Bozulich) also will be on hand.
Speaking on her cellphone Tuesday from a balcony at the Getty
Museum in Los Angeles, Kihlstedt explained how the "van"
got rolling. "When the record came out," she said, "I
didn't want to stick the group on a bill with a random act in
every city, so I decided I would book a whole tour. Lisa Fay is
a friend who has been writing beautiful songs. Then we decided
we should have a headliner, so we asked Carla." Raised in
Lancaster, Pa., Kihlstedt studied violin at the Peabody and Oberlin
conservatories but has been dodging a classical career ever since.
In the centerfold of her album insert, there's a reproduction
of a note, written in a child's hand, that pretty much sums it
up: "Dear Mom and Dad," she writes. "I am very
sorry for upsetting you last night. The Mozart was very very long
and got me bored."
"I was all my teachers' worst nightmare," recalled the
31-year-old fiddler. "My heroes were Laurie Anderson and
the Kronos String Quartet. When I won a contest by playing the
Beethoven violin concerto, I wrote my own cadenzas." 2 Foot
Yard, with Marika Hughes (cello) and Shahzad Ismaily (percussion,
guitar), came together in the studio. The name, says Kihlstedt,
is meant to suggest both a "teeny solo playground,"
as well as a sense of intentional "mismeasurement."
That said, there is an organic quality to Kihlstedt's songs arising
from her conviction that, at its heart, music is about breath.
At her Vancouver workshop, violin tucked under her chin, she sang
wordlessly as she bowed.
"If you're not breathing when you're playing, you stop speaking
in sentences," she explained. "If you're aware of your
voice, it keeps the process visceral." In the same vein,
Kihlstedt's post-modern genre-splicing — she's a regular
on New York's "downtown" scene, where jazz, rock, world,
classical and avant-garde music shoot hoops together, as equals
— isn't what makes her music appealing. It's her sense of
melody, texture, drama and dynamics — not to mention a great
sense of humor.
Check out Carla.
The
Seattle Times
Jazz Etc.
" Carla Kihlstedt's fiddling is mighty fine"
Friday, March 07, 2003
By Paul de Barros
As
a member of Tin Hat Trio, Carla Kihlstedt has charmed audiences
by blending her virtuosic violin playing with an Eastern European
classical sound. At the same time, she's contributed to the avant-metal
crunch of Sleepytime Gorilla Museum and the Gypsy-folk hybrids
of Charming Hostess. Her latest ensemble, 2 Foot Yard -- which
recently released its eponymous debut on John Zorn's Tzadik label
-- sounds like none of her other projects, while drawing on elements
of each.
The ingredient that separates Kihlstedt in any musical setting
is her emotional intensity -- you never forget where she is onstage,
whether she's cutting in with the perfect stroke or contributing
a plaintive howl. The layers that Kihlstedt adds to her own music
-- weaving the violin in and out, over and around her voice, using
her vocals as a counterpoint to her supple tunes -- are nothing
short of stunning. A good example of her unique style is 2 Foot
Yard's "Rooting for the Shy Librarian," a deceptively
simple back-and-forth between melodic violin phrases and soft
syncopated chants. On "Flash Flood" Kihlstedt swings
closer to a rock-oriented sound, letting a simple, repeated vocal
line drive her frantic fingerings to dizzying heights. Her passionate
rendering of F.W. McGee's "50 Miles" showcases her two
instruments more separately, but no less powerfully, while "Patchen"
sets the words of neglected poet Kenneth Patchen to a melody that
alternates between quiet and driving. With Marika Hughes providing
cello backing on most tracks and Shahzad Ismaily contributing
drums, cajon, and acoustic guitar, 2 Foot Yard's compositions
resemble Tin Hat Trio's. But Kihlstedt's voice -- seldom utilized
so well in the past -- sets these new recordings apart. Blended
in with her usual intense playing, Kihlstedt's singing takes her
music to a whole new level.
sfweekly.com
originally published: March 5, 2003
"Carla Kihlstedt: 2 Foot Yard"
By David Hadbawnik |