(Avant Music News) Guitarist Bill Brovold’s Michael Goldberg Variations [PE 142] answers the challenge Brovold’s friend Goldberg posed to him in the early 2000s: could Brovold create a minimalist work that wouldn’t be repetitive and “meandering?” Brovold’s response is this set of eleven duets and one trio. The variations in question are variations based on the very minimal, basic material of two notes a fourth apart. They serve as theme, framework and foundation: sometimes as a simple melody or melodic fragment, sometimes as an ostinato or quasi-arpeggio, sometimes as a harmonic guide. Each of the twelve variations introduces changes of texture, instrumentation, arrangement, and so forth, giving each individual piece its own character while at the same time binding them all with a common, recognizable likeness. - Daniel Barbiero

(Chattanooga Pulse) Bach’s famous composition “The Goldberg Variations”—written for harpsichord but often performed on piano—features a melody with 30 variations that demonstrate the possibilities of the keyboard, challenge the performer’s required virtuosity and bears a cleverness and sophistication that has intrigued listeners for centuries. With a titular nod to Bach’s work, Bill Brovold presents The Michael Goldberg Variations, named after a friend whose “heartfelt comments and wisdom”—while sometimes stinging—were influential and treasured. The album was spurred by a suggestion from Goldberg to make a minimalist piece that wasn’t as “repetitive and meandering” as the minimalism that he was encountering, and Brovold supplied a bare acoustic guitar track—featuring a rattling three-note pattern that occasionally ends on a 4th note—to collaborators to embellish with their own methods for their own individual tracks. Taking the moniker “Bill Brovold’s Stone Soup” for the collective, the “stone soup” folk tale is brought to mind, where contributors add food scraps to a cauldron containing just water and a stone. Like the soup, what’s interesting isn’t the stone—in this case, Brovold’s absurdly simple note pattern—but how others are inspired and what they bring to the table. For the most part, the album has a softness and calmness, as if the players are walking on eggshells, perhaps either to not draw too much attention away from the main theme or to adhere to an unspoken yet loose and amorphous minimalist theme. Most collaborators leave Brovold’s guitar untreated; however, Keith Moline adds a processing effect to the sample, and cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm—who provides his own long tones—overlays Brovold’s guitar string buzz to cause gentle provocation. Both members of Atlanta’s Duet for Theremin and Lap Steel contribute, with Scott Burland adding his pure, drifting and echoing theremin tones and Frank Schultz providing diving lap steel notes. Rhys Chatham’s voice and flute additions suggest some kind of spiritual ritual, while the warm drones and ringing keyboard notes from Frank Pahl evoke tenderness. Karen Haglof’s placid electric guitar wandering has a hint of psych-rock, while the faint electronics of Beth Wilusz and Erik Gustafson seem to have a delicate translucence. As a whole, it’s perhaps like an aural glider, entering the windows of a building or flying through a forest, being lifted by diverse breezes. - Ernie Paik

(Chronogram) On Stone Soup, Ulster Park avant-folk notable Bill Brovold plays an arpeggio on a rattling guitar—prepared in the John Cage fashion—over and over through 13 tracks. It's a neutral D-A-D across a low octave, and it is the song. The spartan pattern is played without academic exactitude: earthy, broken, with stray rattles and flams making it seem that a rural blues may be impending, or that a Nick Drake tune skipped right after measure one. Each track features a different partner who engages in textural ways with Brovold's monotune, a series of minimalist dialectics. Mark Ormerod leads it toward irressolute, luminous folk. Scott Burland imports an alien, legato melody that evokes both L. Shankar and sirens. Rhys Chatham fills the ample open space with vocalic drones and winged flutes. Leonardo ProtoPeople delivers the first real disjunction with his asynchronous beats and samples. Steady state and continual change: Brovold holds at center, but not so fiercely, just a guy with an old guitar. - John Burdick

(Kathodik) Originale menestrello agli albori degli ’80 del circuito No Wave & Avant, il chitarrista e multistrumentista Bill Brovold è una figura alquanto eclettica, cui piace giocare liberamente con l’arte in tutti i suoi rivoli: dalla pittura alla scultura, dalla composizione all’improvvisazione, passando il suo tempo libero nello studio newyorkese ad inventare enigmatici strumenti autocostruiti, e insegnando arte e free-music ai giovani allievi di una scuola pubblica della grande mela. Una mente così libertaria non può che svelarci un curriculum musicale di tutto rispetto in materia d’indipendenza: basta scoprire che a suo tempo intratteneva rapporti con l’ensemble di Rhys Chatham, tirava su band indipendenti, Larval e Strange Farm per citarne alcune, dove hanno militato anche pivellini del calibro di Billy Ficca (i Television dicono qualcosa?). In tempi recenti, dopo aver dato alle stampe un album dal sapore folk-roots in compagnia di Jamie Saft, “Serenity Knolls”, discretamente accolto dalla critica specializzata, Brovold se ne esce fuori con questa trovata dal tocco più minimal che, dalla scelta del titolo, sembra fare l’occhiolino alle celeberrime variazioni di Bach. In questo caso il protagonista del titolo è Michael Goldberg, un’artista visuale, uno spirito libero che ha contribuito per anni con la sua arte ad ispirare quella di Bill. Ad egli dedica quindi una lunga suite suddivisa in 12 frammenti, ognuno dei quali rappresenta una variazione, e viene suonata a turno dai membri dello Stone Soup, il collettivo piuttosto folto di musicisti coinvolto per l’occasione. A comparire nella scaletta dodici performer tra cui brillano i nomi del compianto Rhys Chatham, quello del violoncellista Fred Lonberg-Holm, Mark Ormerod (ad apertura e chiusura), Scott Burland, Frank Pahl e molti altri. Brovold in piena trance minimalista ed estatica abbraccia la chitarra, elaborando una base di note alquanto spartana che ripete per ogni brano in maniera quasi identica, giocando sulla costruzione armonica lenta e combinata di tre, massimo quattro note dalla consistenza velata, acquarellata, poco percettibile. A venirne fuori è una sottile litania di suoni ipoteticamente partoriti di notte al cospetto di uno scenografia desertica dove, secondo i rispettivi istinti, ogni ospite improvvisa sopra, creando così una determinata variazione dello stesso tema armonico. Suoni dall’indole quieta, quasi soporifera si manifestano soprattutto nella parte iniziale, lasciando il passo, solo raramente, a sporadiche parentesi più rumorose sciorinate verso il prosieguo. Un climax in generale rilassante e bluesy che non dispiacerebbe ai fan di Loren Mazzacane Connors, ma anche agli estimatori della scuderia di Montreal, Constellations. - Sergio Eletto

(Vital Weekly) Recently I reviewed a cassette release by Brovold for Eh? Tapes: ‘Superstar; a collection of 11 songs performed by an 11-piece ensemble. Now Brovold surprises us with something completely different for the Eh? Tapes related Public Eyesore-label. He started his career in the 80s in New York City, where he worked with Rhys Chatham, Glenn Branca and Jamie Saft. In the 90s he operated from Detroit with avant-rock group Larval. They released several albums for Knitting Factory, Avant and Cuneiform. His newest statement is related to the past. Michael Goldberg is an old friend, who influenced Brovold back in the 80s, when he was doing mainly visual work. Early 2000s they discussed minimalism, and Goldberg asked him if he “could make a minimalistic piece that wasn’t as repetitive and ‘meandering’ as what he was listening to” at that moment.” This remark planted a seed and eventually led Brovold composing a very basic and minimalistic pattern. This pattern, played by him on guitar, is the backbone in all 12 works on this cd. He invited 12 musicians to make their contributions, resulting in a diverse sequence of duets. We hear him with Mark Ormerod, Scott Burland, Rhys Chatham, Fred Lonberg-Holm, Leonardo Protopeople, Keith Moliné, Frank Schultz, Nick Didkovsky, Frank Pahl, Karen Haglof, Beth Wilusz/Erik Gustafson. In all its simplicity the motive played by Brovold defines in general the scope and shape of the contributions. Most of them move on in a quiet and meditative way and circle around four minutes, using a diversity of instruments and techniques: acoustic and electric guitar, voice, cello, etc. And all have Brovold’s theme in a prominent position. Surprisingly with the individual participation of so many different musicians, they duets make up a coherent whole of pieces of equal quality and it is a very satisfying and inspiring project. - Dolf Mulder

(Sound Projector) Recently heard Bill Brovold on the cassette Superstar, from the Eh? Audio Repository label, a hugely enjoyable tape of guitar melodies and instrumental genius where Brovold played everything he could get his hands on with gusto and elan. The CDR we have today is, conversely, a collaborative effort – Brovold teams up with 12 other musicians for a series of duos, calling the collective Bill Brovold’s Stone Soup – and it is very subdued and minimal, quite some way from the lively fun-loving sparkiness of Superstar. Michael Goldberg Variations (PUBLIC EYESORE RECORDS PE141) is however a collection of great beauty and serenity, and the music exudes a certain calm and peace that is rare. Apparently, a large amount of the aesthetic and artistic inspiration came to Brovold not from the world of music, but from his painter friend Michael Goldberg. He goes back a long way with Goldberg and counts him as an important influence on both his visual art and his music. Goldberg it was who wondered out loud if Bill could make minimalist music that wasn’t “repetitive and meandering” – evidently he’d had a surfeit of La Monte Young – and this album represents the response. Performed mostly with guitar (acoustic) but also with other stringed instruments, recorders or flutes, vocal chants and percussion, the album showcases the talents of Mark Ormerod, Scott Burland, Rhys Chatham. Fred Lonberg-Holm, and many others; one would love to know more about the collaborative process by which these understated and highly simpatico pieces came into being, as they seem so perfectly-formed, and incredibly natural too. Brovold evidently has a lightness of touch that makes “official” minimalist composition seem positively heavy-handed in comparison. I might add that since all 12 pieces are set in the same key, and feature the same simple three-note figure played on a guitar, it’s possible to read this as a single work divided into 12 parts, a suite, or variations on a theme – hence the title. A real gem of beautiful, clear and simple music; please do try and seek out a copy. - Ed Pinsent

(Babysue) This release is an excellent example of why we admire and appreciate the always perplexing and unusual Public Eyesore label. Whereas so many other labels release things hoping they'll score big financially in the long run, the folks at this increasingly strange label seem to be intent on supporting artists they truly believe in. Although his name is not widely known, in certain circles Bill Brovold is a well-respected artist. Bill began playing music way back in the 1970s and is probably best known as a member of the groups Rhys Chatham Ensemble and Larval. Michael Goldberg Variations is a very personal project, and a tribute to Brovold's lifelong friend Michael Goldberg. The strange compositions on this album are underground minimalist instrumentals that can either provide audio entertainment or be used to set the mood or tone of an environment. Interestingly, each track is named for the artist/musician who played on that particular cut. We particularly like the fact that Brovold himself individually hand printed and colored the cool cardboard sleeves for this release. Subtle, compelling tracks include "Mark Ormerod," "Rhys Chatham," "Nick Didkovsky," and "Beth Wilusz/Erik Gustafson." - Don Seven