Junk is serious business. Just the other day I had a new CD from Scott Smallwood up for reviewing, and it gave me some seriously serious feelings, from way out around the garbage piles of the Utah desert at Wendover, and from inside the rusty old hangar which once harbored the infamous Enola Gay… To quote some sentiments about garbage from that review (how can I do this!!!):

and:

and:

And it feels appropriate to rob myself of some of my words for another junk music review for this one; reusing the remnants of that review for this one… (how can I do this!!!)

A strange property of this Knaack CD is the resemblance it carries to some early Buddy Holly LP on the Coral label from around 1958, like the great “Reminiscing” album. The resemblance is found in the duration of the Junk tracks, which are short, just like the durations of early rock n’ roll songs. The other resemblance is the duration of the album, which is LP length.
For a Swede like myself Donald Knaack’s name is funny in itself, the way it relates to old junk objects. Knaack in Swedish, spelled “knak”, means creak; a creaking sound. It’s almost as good as the name of the foremost sound poet of these days, Jaap Blonk from Holland! Wow, those are Donald Duck names; names that perfectly fit the occupation or character of the characters…

I first heard of Donald Knaack on a radio program on the Swedish music and culture FM channel – Channel 2 – hosted by composer, musician, producer and guru Folke Rabe; retired but still keeping-on-keeping-on. I saved the program to DAT and haven’t had the time yet to listen thoroughly (It’s a busy life of listening and writing over at Sonoloco Record Reviews!) – but I will eventually transfer the program to a CD-R and keep it together with this official Knaack CD.

There is a lot of information on the activities of Knaack over at his site, so I direct those interested to www.junkmusic.org.
A short summary of some of the doings of Mr. Knaack, snatched from his Internet site could look like this:

Knaack is basically a percussionist who plays on found objects, recycled materials, discarded elements from the human society.
He has been quite successful in performing his art, which has been offered-up at such different locations as Late Night With Conan O’Brien and Environment Day at the United Nations, concerts with Eminem and performances for elementary school students.
The sound world of junk, plastered with an odd-man beat, fascinates one and all!

Once, not so long ago, Knaack went to Croatia, where he collected spoils of war (sounds like something Harry Partch would have used!). Knaack in fact composed a Requiem for the Victims of War with those objects.

Donald Knaack’s music has been choreographed, especially by choreographer Tywla Tharp and her works for the American Ballet Theatre. Percussive music is oftentimes very appropriate for modern dance. It has a history, a tradition, in contemporary America. Just think of John Cage’s music for ballets by Merce Cunningham.

In addition, Knaack works with communal projects to shape so-called Junk Music Playstations, where Knaack is the leader of the pack in constructing sound sculptures with specific communities, made from junk gathered in those communities.

Read about those wondrous Junkjams at his site! Do it!

Knaack’s road to garbage started from the very beginning, one might say, as he always (but don’t all children?) as a child banged away at everything. (I think the original thing about Knaack is that he managed to keep his youthful attitude alive and kicking!). Later he found himself at West Point (!), in the United States Military Academy Band, and even later in the Louisville Orchestra and the Buffalo Philharmonic. This Junkman’s got schooling and traditional skills, don’t doubt that!
When he was artist-in-residence at the Center for the Creative and Performing Arts at the State University of New York at Buffalo he got acquainted with John Cage, and subsequently worked with him.
Knaack found a motto for his work with trash in Marcel Duchamp’s statement that “tools that are no good require more skill.” Knaack’s first solo album was a fruit of that line of thought. On it Knaack used “simple objects to create complex and fascinating music. For that album, Knaack constructed a complete set of “instruments” from glass - over 80 sounds, from wind chimes to xylophones - using everything from microscope slides to wine bottles to custom-made glass spheres with marbles inside that made a sound like the ocean tide when the sphere was rotated.”

Donald Knaack has recorded all John Cage’s Constructions for percussion on Tomato Records; a recording that has won acclaim for the care and stubbornness demonstrated in the unrestrained adherence to the composer’s instructions.

It is pointed out in the info found on Knaack’s site that though most people who happen on his music think it consists of regular percussion run through electronic alterations, the music is indeed rising out of strictly recycled Vermont garbage.

“Metal Music” [large piece of sheet metal, tin cans, oil drum I, steel grating, oil drum II, steel drum, steel rods, metal plate dipped in water, automobile brake drums]:

The beginning large piece of sheet metal provides a steady, slow beat of thunder, while soon enough smaller, faster percussions are steel mosquitoes in furious attacks on hard surfaces. After a little while the percussion is layered in numerous strata, in a hilarious progression of a hasty, insistent metal precipitation. This is a stale steel stilt dance if ever there was one!

“Wood Music” [long 2 x 4, medium length 2 x 4, short 2 x 4, shortest 2 x 4, hardwood xylophone (long lengths), split bamboo, hardwood xylophone (short lengths), window shutter]:

The sound here starts really close, woody (of course), and grows gradually into a more complicated rhythm, a mixed rhythm in bewildering patterns that have you associate to African tribal gatherings as well as to Conlon Nancarrow (the intricate layered rhythmic patterns of his “Studies for Player Piano”), David Dunn (the insect sounds recorded through hydrophones in fresh water ponds in Africa and America; “Chaos and the Emergent Mind of the Pond”) bamboo gamelan of Bali and Steve Reich (“Drumming”). The timbres are exceedingly beautiful, conjuring up goodwilled spirits out of coniferous forests from all over the Northern Hemisphere.

“Mishmash Music” [sewer pipe slit drums, split bamboo, toy hammers, clay flower pots, wine bottles, automobile tail-light, sewer pipe cap drums]:

A little phrase is introduced in the softer realms of percussion (sewer pipe), embellished by fast, rhythmic tapping, and a sound as from a toy duck rather than a toy hammer! What is it??? A rather traditional percussive sequence follows, rolling along, but sooner than later other timbres are pasted in, but in this piece unusually soloistic, i.e. not very layered – and the velocity of the musical progression also varies a lot between segments of the “Mishmash”.

“Kitchen Music” [pot lids, drinking glasses filled with various levels of water, skillet lid, bottom of soup kettle played with dried spaghetti, plastic cake box, ice cube tray, pots, skillets, lids, refrigerator shelf (grate), wine bottles, electric blender]:

The instrumentation of this bit reminds me a lot of some of the output of a particularly heroic Swedish sound artist; Sune Karlsson from Danderyd, Stockholm, who produced 12 hours of household- and other home sounds in his giant work “Phonia Domestica” during a couple of months in the fall of 1988. He also used dry spaghetti and wine bottles and much more. Now I see there are more guys out there who are… out there!
A slow beat is joined by a faster, a deeper, ringing, bulging gamelan-like trembling is added, until the character of this very beautiful piece is revealed to be gamelanish! I look for a clue as to the base drum sound, but can’t really deduce from which utensil it does come – but the music is exciting, forceful – and timbrally as well as rhythmically… beautiful! The electric blender adds an electronic feel to it.

“Paper Music” [crumpling newspapers, tearing newspapers and brown bags, rubbing-striking-shaking large sheets of paper, beating cardboard boxes, flipping the pages of books, beating telephone books, bursting a brown bag filled with air]:

Again this reminds me of Sune Karlsson, who even rubbed newly washed terry cloth socks close to the microphone and sucked newspapers with a vacuum cleaner hose… Donald Knaack is telling the story just as well as Karlsson did, and I’m especially impressed by the flipping of pages of books! That becomes so theatrical too, because even if you’re just listening to the CD, you can’t help but imagining the guy flipping pages, flipping… out!
This is so… paperish, fiery paperish, sounding like a fire crackling away or the imagined sound of the Northern Lights ripping the nocturnal sky apart… and some of the amassed paperisms even come across as rain beating down on the street… until things get more rhythmical and large, big, fat, wide paper sounds overwhelm you… and the beating of telephone directories provide the base drum!

“Body Music” [facial cheeks struck with fingers, handclapping, chest and stomach struck with hand, legs struck with hand, foot striking floor, mouth sounds imitating drums and other percussive sounds]:

Well, this could hardly be called trash music… I mean, Knaack is playing the anatomy! This work has its domiciliary rights in the vein of the farthest reaches of sound poetry, with guys like Henri Chopin and Jaap Blonk, who frequently make similar use of their bodies.
Taping cheeks and modulating the sound reshaping the shape of the oral cavity is an old way of producing variable sounds, as you do with a Jew’s harp, for example. Wheezing sounds repeated in a rhythmic manner and the intense cheek-tapping, plus hand clapping and foot stomping has this bit catch on pretty darn good; gets you on your feet, one and all!

“Dracula’s Dance” [superball on wood, gears moving on wood, chains dragging the floor, tin cans and metal scraping other metal, metal bowed with cello bow, window shutter, radiator duct, bamboo]:

Strange, howling, blurting spooky ghost sounds rise from the basement or out of the mist. Chains rattle – and it’s a regular ghost story from earlier decades… and the title of course shows that Knaack is aware of this!
The screeching of metal reminds me more of steel works experiences or big spacious bus garages with bus breaks squeaking… but this vocal property of the sound web lands the music in some kind of Goofy comic strip. This is comic strip audio, Mr. Man!

“Zen Samba” [oil can, sewer pipe slit drums, soda can shaker, oil can gong, bamboo, hardwood xylophone, tins cans, steel rod]:

Steely percussion and a solid base, sounding like a synthesizer base or an electrified bass guitar, readily places this forward-swaying motion in a carnival in South America, so the title is right on the money again. The rhythms are extremely intricate, beautifully dispersed… and the pitches in this pattern are spun between the lowest infra sounds up to insect wheezing high shrills. It’s a pity this piece is so short. I could enjoy this piece and variations on it for the duration of a full-length CD. How about that, Mr. Knaack?

“Wind Chime Music” [keys, brass curtain rings, metal pipe, tape hubs, wood pegs, wood dowels, larger wood dowels, bamboo, glass, microscope slides, glass rods]:

This begins tingling, like Santa times or snow crystals in winter moonlight, or the jingle jangle mornings of Mr. Tambourine Man… It’s a wondrous web of gleaming inklings, grainy shiny particles, taking on a broader spectrum of glassy fragility further down the piece. The sound turns woody after a while, in a prayer bead hard wood delicacy. Towards the end the tingling snowscape of the beginning returns, and you feel your way through brittle reflections, light of the spirit shining through…

“Shakers” [cardboard cylinder with dried rice, plastic bottle with dry pop corn seeds, wine bottle with marbles, plastic bottle with dried rice, soft drink can with pop corn seeds, soft drink can with rice, small bottle with BBs and large wine bottles with BBs]:

Well, this for sure is a mimicry of Sune Karlsson’s wildest “Phonia Domestica” adventures, but I’m certain Knaack and Karlsson never heard of each other, so evidently these ideas fly up and flutter around in different places with no connection in between whatsoever, which is kind of joyous! Maybe you have to be an integrated part of the American culture to understand it all, because I haven’t got the slightest idea what a BB is – and yet I used to live in Dallas, Texas, working for the Texas Highway Department… before the call from my homeland Scandinavian whispering forests got to hard to handle over there on the lonely prairie…
This sounds, to begin with, just like Mick Jagger shaking his maracas, with Charlie Watts joining in at a London Club in 1963… but it is Knaack and his popcorn seeds!
This gravel pit audio gets more varied as metallic nuances are woven into the progression, and after a while an auditory hallucination in the pop corn rhythm delivers a locomotive thundering down the line in Big Sky Montana, like a winding millipede across the landscape…

“3 + 2” [wood slats I, wood slats II, base of metal milk container, metal cookie tin, slap sound from several small wooden strips, large metal plates, sewer pipe cap drum]:

Gamelan is the obvious analogy here, to the extent that it is almost indistinguishable from gamelan – at least modern American gamelan from the likes of Son of Lion. The piece has a peculiar, returning little musical figure, which spins the composition into the area of real hit music, bound for the charts! This is very, very interesting music, and I urge Mr. Knaack to release much longer versions, full CD length if possible.

“March” [tin cans I, tin cans II, metal cookie tin lid, sewer pipe cap drums, steel rods, automobile brake drums, oil can, chains on the floor, long 2x4, shorter 2x4, window shutter, large wooden slat xylophone, small wooden slat xylophone]:

Indeed this is performed in march style, tin soldier fairytale march style, Santa factory style, Walt Disney style, Pinocchio style! It gets hysterical, yet retains its rare beauty: what a combination! Hail to Chief Knaack!

“Rock Music” [piece of thin slate, small, pieces of marble, smallest pair of rocks, small pair of rocks, medium pair of rocks, large pair of rocks]:

Somehow this is quarry music, stone dust audio, cut-stone sonics! I can see little guys – the dwarfs of Snow White, maybe – hacking away at their rocks in the quarry, Hi ho, hi, ho, and off to work we go!

“Tilted Dream” [pan containing a small amount of water, metal base, small hardwood wind chimes, curtain rings wind chimes, saw blades, deep metal pots, larger metal pots, metal bars, metal pipes]:

A dreamy soundscape, in a jungle gamelan setting, opens carefully and slowly, picking up in intensity and bent sounds, bulging, soft metallic sounds, almost submerged sounds, definitely with a strong gamelan character, but with the added curvature of the saw blades, making you feel a little nauseated, sea sick… and it’s so beautiful, in need of a much, much longer duration. The piece reminds me a lot of the holy ritual Gong Gede gamelan of the Batur temple of Bali.

Listening through this remarkable CD has been very interesting, very enjoyable – but this set can only be seen as sampler CD, because many of these pieces should – must! – have more time to evolve and develop, which would make them even more interesting, spell-binding. We need long versions. Perhaps Donald Knaack has long, winding versions hidden away on DAT-tapes or CD-Rs??? We need them! NOW!