(Lost In A Sea Of Sound) Sounds emanating from artwork is a frontier left for creative interpretation and skilled means of channeling. The artists who make up the project Pet The Tiger are the select crew you would want on this en devour. Surely Brian Lucas, the artists who created all of these drawings, felt at ease when the creation of this "soundtrack" was discussed. Gaze Emanations has no boundaries, but this does not mean these sonic craftings are scattered or chaotic. Looking at the artwork created by Brian Lucas, there is a format and method that bonds all of the drawings together. The project Pet The Tiger was thoughtful with each selection. With eight musicians working together to portray in sound one artist's renderings, there is a sense of concise appreciation for the entire process. Of the group, three artists are highly adept at creating there own instruments. Two musicians specializing in percussion, one with saxophones, one with trumpet and electronics and the last with the incredible voice. To accurately describe in words, what musical artists are describing in sound, of the drawings another artist created, seems futile. Maybe to summarize, as far out as these sounds are, they are still very drawn in. This is not vibrant bedlam, instead aural introspective conception with patient individuals who add just the right amount. Their sum of sound together is still less than many would compile on their own. That is how good this is. If you really want to blown away, just click on the links for each artist below. Tried to find the most pertinent sites for each person rather than all facebook pages. Tackle that task, listen and look at the pictures below while experiencing. The titles to the drawings are the same as the titles to each track. "Radial Garden" is the cover picture and "Here Comes Everybody" has two tracks. - Robot Rattle
(Xactionmusic) Echoes of short baritone sax blasts fly out of the speakers, dart around you, smack into the air behind your head, then fly back into a layered landscape of elongated tones that might have been derived from the same instrument, a reminder of Bernard Parmegiani’s De Natura Sonorum (1975) or Espèces d’espaces (2001). Pet The Tiger / Brain Lucas released Gaze Emanations through Public Eyesore on September 1, 2019. Sounds are the mirage of the human spirit, and these are the compositions which reflect the struggles and wonderment’s of life; through a sparsity of dynamical changes in sounds and how they are presented. From tracks like Radial Garden, No Bones or Little Feather, the desolate melodies and dampened mechanical tones echo through a mass production of sound designs and torturous technique. Interweaving and adding character to the eccentricities that excite, dissonance teems with unfocused arrangements and an array of chaotic instrumentation; Sempre Piu!!! You certainly wouldn’t want to attempt predicting the next arrangements. Nothing here is conventional work, even harsh noise – or styles of – sway far from the path this album explores. I can only imagine the methods that Pet The Tiger / Brain Lucas used to conjure his compositions, sometimes sounding like various sounds are produced from touching or vibrating strings, or even experimenting with certain instrumental-gestures close to this touch. Masking and absorbing some baritone or trombone pitch while modulating its source, is almost uncanny to what some may consider a digression in sound and composition. However, the unity of vocals, classical instruments and frequencies which resonate from a collection of all these, is transportive in nature, as these are the elements where whimsical and other-worldly environments are found. The subtle variations and dissonance in tones and patterns are born from the field recordings which resemble a psychic riddle – intricately interweaving through our journey of musical transcendence. - Sutter Greaves
(Babysue) We've never ever heard of anyone who who has the ability to "perform drawings"...so we immediately had an instinctual feeling that this album would be different. Add to this the fact that it has been released by the perpetually bizarre underground Public Eyesore label...and you've got a recipe for some decidedly wild and unpredictable stuff. Gaze Emanations: Pet the Tiger and Co. Perform Drawings by Brian Lucas is decidedly obscure and non-musical. Folks who require things like melodies and discernible lyrics will probably have a great deal of trouble digesting the compositions on this album. These abstract spontaneous audio experiments are collage-like. Sounds and ideas seem to randomly combine with one another before heading off in different directions. The musicians/artists are Bryan Day, Tom Djil, Phillip Greenlief, Cheryl Leonard, Tom Nunn, Suki O'Kane, Gino Robair, and Davis Samas. These compositions defy conventions. The musicians operate in a world where anything goes and the possibilities are endless. Housed in a slickly designed digipak sleeve complete with a booklet featuring those drawings by Lucas, this peculiar little package is only intended for folks interested in treading the outer realms of audio releases. Confusing and spooky tracks include "Radial Garden," "Accord," "Simultaneity Explained," and "Old Growth." - Don7
(Avant Music News) On Gaze Emanations, the sui generis ensemble Pet the Tiger and Co. respond to a series of eleven drawings by artists Brian Lucas with a set of twelve elaborately crafted, abstract soundscapes. Pet the Tiger & Co. is an unusually configured octet comprising three players of invented instruments (Bryan Day, Cheryl Leonard, and Tom Nunn); two players of prepared and found percussion (Suki O’Kane and Gino Robair); saxophonist Philip Greenlief, trumpeter/electronics artist Tom Djll, and vocalist David Samas, who also produced the album. On paper it’s a potentially rich and varied mixture of timbres that in reality proves to be exactly that. Much about these performances is abstract in the way that acousmatic music is abstract—unusual sounds whose provenance is either obscure or obscured—which isn’t surprising, given the predominance of invented instruments or modified acoustic instruments. The textures of these performances are akin to mosaics made of multicolored, loosely joined tiles—even though the group is large, the sound rarely gets cluttered or overly dense. Samas’ voice is in keeping with the overall acousmatic feeling, consisting as it does of overtone singing, pre-verbal utterances and speech in some indecipherable language. On Ally the acoustic voices of Greenlief’s saxophone and Djll’s trumpet come to the foreground in a way that slyly acknowledges the conventionally musical and, given the context of the other performances, comes as a peculiar kind of shock. Lucas’ drawings, which the group interpreted as graphic scores, are included in the CD’s booklet. They are colorful geometric and stylized works that seem to allude to astronomical, mythological, and metaphysical subjects—arcane provocations that Pet the Tiger and Co. aptly bring to sonic life. - Daniel Barbiero
(Sound Projector)The inspiration for this collection of sprightly improvised pieces is original and intriguing: artist Brian Lucas created eleven drawings and the eight musicians of the Pet the Tiger collective responded to all of these drawings with twelve tracks of flowing instrumental electroacoustic freeform fun. One of the drawings features on the album’s front cover with the rest also enclosed in the album package, and from what I have seen of them, they are colourful and stylized works that jump out from their black backgrounds: some look as if they are part of secret tribal rituals and others seem to have intricate internal circuitry that perform esoteric functions. Three members of the PtT collective make their own instruments while the others play trumpet / electronics (Tom Djll), saxophone (Phil Greenlief) and prepared or found percussion, and one musician (David Samas, who also produced the album) sings, hums, grunts and chants with an astonishing vocal range. The general style of the album is sparse with light and lively sounds that sprawl and scramble everywhere. Samas presides over proceedings with rumbly muttering approval that might befit a benign if somewhat overfed emperor in his cloud or his spaceship poring over his empire shown in microcosm in a hologram pool. The PtT musicians create very evocative, quirky and active worlds with distinct atmospheres and moods from which a quivery saxophone or a sonorous throat-singing aria might emanate. In their details, the tracks are very busy yet the overall result can be surprisingly relaxed: it’s as if the emperor’s courtiers are feverishly working day and night, burning their candles at both ends, just to cover the huge imperial domain in its glory for the emperor’s delectation when he gazes at the hologram they prepare. No corner of the empire’s territory is spared scrutiny. Cutest track of the lot must be “Here comes everybody II” where Greenlief’s sax scurries around like a worried little chihuahua looking for its master. “Festival terrain” has an unforgettable atmosphere, all deep and cavernous, and quite dark though not sinister or malevolent in any way. Samas’ vocal performance throughout the album is remarkable: his voice plumbs unimaginable depths and his rumbles might very well be the sound of the cosmos marvelling at the wonders it has produced over aeons. This album is perfect for those times when you just want to lie back and let your mind wander in intricate little worlds of colourful sparkle, with Samas as your eccentric tour guide. - Ed Pinsent
(Bad Alchemy) Das Mutterlabel offeriert sie auf CD und brachte es mit Pet The Tiger (einem wilden 8tett mit David Samas, Tom Djll, Gino Robair und PE-Macher Bryan Day) auf # PE145. Von Eh?, das 2016 nach eh?88 umstieg von CDr auf Audio Repository Tapes, erreichten mich vier davon, darunter gleich mal Joyous Junctures (eh?107, C-60 in Purpur) von JAAP BLONK. Mit der losesten Zunge weit und breit taucht er in elektronisch wobbelnde Wellen, er lässt spitze Wooshes umeinander jaulen, er flüstert, zischt, keucht, maultrommelt, ganz Chatterboxer, Geräuschebrutzler, Schlabbergosch, Klimperheini, kaspernder Kinder- und Spießerschreck. Er bringt KIs Kannitverstan bei, er schmachtet als Crooner, kakophont, brrrrät Duckburger, lässt Mike Patton mit Phil Minton scharmützeln. Er käseorgelt, schnappt und hechelt Umlaute und dreht die hühnerbeinigen Sirenen in Hypergeschwindigkeit schwindlig. Er klöppelt zu einem träumerisch gedehnten Zeitlupensong, lässt die Luft aus einem Luftballon brausen, hurzt unisono mit R2-D2, furrrzt auf Deklarationen in fernöstlichen Dialekten. Cling-Yin hin, Yang-Clang her, Blonk gurgelt cholerisch mit gurrenden Friedenstauben, er singt, pianoumtobt, gaga à gogo und, zu Stabspieldingdang, einen Lovesong, er kämpft Zungenkungfu mit einem aggressiven Reißverschluss, läst eine Computerstimme näseln. Gegen Blonks Sturm- und Dachschaden gibt es keine Hagelversicherung. - Rigo Dittmann
