(Aural Innovations) Though new to me, Alan Sondheim has been around for a long time. His 1967 Riverboat album is notable for its inclusion on the Nurse With Wound list, and he recorded albums for the ESP-Disk label. The list of instruments he is credited with on this album is what first caught my attention. In addition to electric guitar and violin he also plays dan moi, suroz, sarangi, oud, cura cumnbus, electric saz, viola, cura saz, and pipa. His partner, Azure Carter, is a singer/songwriter whose lyrics on the album are, to quote the promo sheet, “related to and/or inspired by Second Life, an online virtual world.” Along with Christopher Diasparra on tenor and baritone saxophones and Edward Schneider on alto sax we have the dozen songs that make up Avatar Women. Instrumentally the music is stripped down, with Sondheim playing solo instruments, and switching among the various pieces in his stringed arsenal. He’s a gifted musician, the songs typically consisting of frantic yet incredibly passionate soloing. When the horns join in they are usually restrained and never dominate their stringed ally. In fact, it’s not uncommon for the horns to be the pastoral counter to Sondheim’s frenzied playing. Carter’s vocals are a mixture of singing and poetic narrative, which contrasts but nicely melds with the music to create a uniquely intriguing combination. Stylistically the music is a witch’s cauldron, the whole being a kind of Avant-Ethnic/Traditional/Shamanic/Jazz blend. Representative tracks include Buried, on which Sondheim’s stringed instrument has a trippy Middle Eastern bazaar feel, playing a slightly dissonant and dronish yet pleasantly hypnotic melody, which sounds very nice combined with Carter’s vocals. Sondheim plays a frantic melody on Dark Robe, again with a Middle Eastern flavor, though there is a strong avant free-improv element. And when the horns join in it gives the music a strangely ethereal jazz quality. On Surely the music has elements of some traditional, perhaps Celtic pub style, yet it’s also got that Eastern vibe, shaken and stirred within a shamanic free-improv jazz context. Later in the piece Sondheim’s playing takes off like a maddened experimental Bluegrass musician, joined by slowly jazz soloing sax. I love the Eastern mystic meets banjo pickin’ hillbilly style on World, accompanied by wailing jazz horns. Making Boys is similar though Sondheim’s playing becomes frenzied, tempered only by the vocals and subdued horns. Avatar Man With Dream Women and Buried II are a little different, with Sondheim playing what sounds like an electronically enhanced jaw harp, again making for an interesting contrast with Carter’s vocals. In summary, Avatar Women might have succeeded even if it were Sondheim alone. His playing had me transfixed throughout. But combined with the vocals and horns we’ve got one of the most compelling blends of styles I’ve heard this year. Aural Innovations readers with experimental tastes will appreciate the (I’m sure unintended) Psychedelic elements. - Jerry Kranitz

(Sound Projector) Intermittent at best, the trail left behind Alan Sondheim could confound the sharpest tack in the box. This senior figure in American avant gardery has added even more fresh air between his musical endeavours in the last decade by becoming an expert voice in the virtual world of cyberspace theory. In fact, his surfacing/re-surfacing with releases on ESP, Qbico, Porter etc … can span years, if you choose to do the arithmetic. But…nevertheless his name should still strike a chord as an entry in the “Stapleton/Fothergill Scrolls” (a.k.a. the ‘Nurse with Wound List’), with the Songs l.p. (Riverboat Records, 1967). So, with that in mind, the Avatar Woman c.d. can almost be regarded as another one in a series of comeback albums. The first thing that really beckons is the at-times portentous sprechsang of his vocal half: Ms. Carter. A presence that evinces heavily beaded curtains and secretive assignments in crowded bazaars. Listening to tracks like the loosely-wired “Dark Robe” and the rather excellent desert-blues of “Marriage to Language” makes me think of a Lady June or indeed a Dawn Muir of Brainticket for the twenty-first century. Alan meanwhile, provides a tastefully measured and sympatico support. His exotic array of stringed contraptions such as the electric saz, cura cumbus, suroz, sarangi and the dan moi out Embryo (mid-period) Embryo and are rich enough in tone and timbre to make the green-eyed monster rise up in messrs Lindley and Feldthouse of the U.S. Kaleidoscope, circa Side Trips. The only problem that Avatar throws up is that there’s more than a good deal of the material that has its controls deliberately set at medium speed, so as to allow for Azure’s unhurried, ultra crystal clear enunciation. If you can handle that, for just over an hour, then it’s all plain sailing really. - Steve Pescott

(Ptolemaic Terracope) Also from the same label, comes the "Avatar Woman" c.d. by AZURE CARTER & ALAN SONDHEIM. If the second-mentioned cove agitates a distant memory cell, it's because his "Songs" l.p. (Riverboat Records/1967), was an entry in the legendary "Nurse with Wound List" of yore. There have been recorded sightings via ESP and Qbico Records, but boy are they thin on the ground. Obviously becoming a big name in cyberspace theory (nah, me neither...) has taken its toll on the musical side of things. Our loss being cyberspace's gain I suppose. So as to this, ahem, comeback album, we find this multi-instrumentalist chumming up with vocalist/songwriter Azure Carter. Her exotically-inclined chants and incantations seem to channel wayward free spirits like Amy Sheffer and Carole Caroompas and really come to the fore on "Surely" and the bewitching "Blood Tantra". Although the material is lightly sprinkled with jazz inflections blown in by saxists Christopher Diasperra and Edward Schneider, the scenery is pure ethno cut and paste wonderment. With such instrumentation as the Dan Moi, Suroz, Sarangi, Cuma Cumbus (??) and Electric Saz, being plucked and twanged, I presume, I'm reminded of small armchair globe-trotting units like Limbus 4 and Kalacakra. Possibly a little too rich to be snarfed up at one sitting, but nonetheless "Avatar..." remains a nice item and one I shall certainly return to at a later date.... - Andrew Young

(Monk Mink Pink Punk) This duo fashions a weird, eclectic cycle of songs centered around Carter’s classical Indian-influenced singing. The singing is more like chanting, and supposedly chanting about the online community Second Life (!). She intones about the mysteries of love, song, language and identity. Sondheim accompanies each song with seemingly a different instrument, a variety of ethnic violins, jaw harps and on “Credo,” electric guitar in the blues tradition. The songs are weirdly modal, sticking to the same tonal center throughout the song. It’s a beautiful and original presentation. - Josh Ronsen

(Monsieur Délire) Avant-folk songs with Azure Carter (nice voice, plaintive at times, and she occasionally gets close to Harry Partch’s speech-singing) and Alan Sondheim who plays here all sorts of stringed instruments (violin, viola, guitar, sarangi, saz, pipa, oud, etc.). Two sax players have guest appearances, but the bulk of the record revolves around the duo. The mood is often bleak or at least troubling, though some pieces (like “Credo”) are serene. The songwriting is slack, leaving room for improvisation. Strange, interesting, and Sondheim is an exceptional musician. - François Couture

(NewMusicBox) The description “folk music from another planet” has been used to describe the output of musical creators as diverse as Meredith Monk, Captain Beefheart, the English art rock duo Renaldo and the Loaf, and the proto-New Age jazz-fusion ensemble Oregon. In fact it’s an expression that even I was tempted to use when I wrote about recordings of the ancient Mayan-inspired compositions of Jeremy Haladyna and in fact did when I wrote about the fascinating sonic explorations of a Taos-based duo called Untravelled Path. But it’s always struck me as a somewhat disingenuous explanation for oddball sounds since, after all, who’s to say what music from another planet would sound like? It might sound completely bland. And certainly people on our own planet have been making pretty strange sounds for millennia. Yet it’s the first thing that comes to mind yet again as I ponder how to describe Avatar Woman, a collaboration between Providence-based singer-songwriter Azure Carter and her life partner, multi-instrumentalist Alan Sondheim. Carter’s magnum opus has been an ongoing performance/video piece called The Fairyland Around Us based on unpublished naturalist writings of Opal Whitely (1897-1992) who is mostly remembered for her mysterious and controversial childhood diary. Sondheim, though no relation to the iconoclastic Broadway composer-lyricist, has been an iconoclast of both music and words for almost as long as his more famous namesake. Back in the late 1960s, ESP-Disk issued two LPs of his experimental improvisations on a wide range of string, wind, and percussive instruments. In subsequent decades, he became even more devoted to experimenting with written language, becoming one of the pioneers of cybertext; one of his more radical techniques involves blurring poetry and computer languages. The 12 songs featured on Avatar Woman are admittedly somewhat less ambitious than some of Carter and Sondheim’s individual large-scale projects, but they are no less adventurous. Although all of the songs herein were composed by Carter, they sound the way they do largely because of Sondheim’s unusual performance approach to a potpourri of instruments from around the world—including violin, viola, oud, pipa, sarangi, electric guitar, electric saz, dàn môi (a Vietnamese jaw harp), and something that was totally new to me, a cura cümbü? which is a small banjo-like instrument that was developed in Istanbul in the early 20th century. On “Buried,” Carter’s extremely pretty sounding vocals on a ballad are prevented from being at all soothing by the presence of a truly off-kilter sarangi accompaniment—this has nothing to do with raga. Toward the end, the voice completely slips away and all that’s left is a reverb-laden double-stop. On “Dark Robe,” Carter’s voice sounds far less innocent; there’s an almost eerie creepiness to her tone quality as she sings about death stalking her against a backdrop of mostly plucked strings and occasionally drones from two saxophones played by Christopher Diasparra and Edward Schneider. “Surely,” in which Sondheim again accompanies Carter on a bowed string instrument, reminds me somewhat of G.B. Grayson’s performance of the creepy murder ballad “Ommie Wise” from Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music, although half way through it sounds like Albert Ayler sat in on the session. The almost tender “Among the Ferns”—similarly arranged for voice and bowed string, but this time no saxophones—is based on poems by the Edwardian socialist and LGBT activist Edward Carpenter. For “World,” the electric saz strums madly as the voice and a saxophone weave melodic shards around it. In the alternate universe I often wish I lived in, “Making Boys” would be a Top 40 hit; in the real one I do live in, it sounds like what might have happened if Jacqueline Humbert sang Robert Ashley’s songs with Eugene Chadbourne. Sondheim’s erratic bowing offers the one element of variance in the hypnotic, austerely minimal “Blood Tantra”—I write this as a compliment! The dàn môi gets pulled out for “Avatar Man with Dream Woman”; much more flexible than most jaw harps, the instrument is capable of a very wide range of sounds, all of which seem to get used here. In fact, pun intended, the conclusion made my jaw drop. The saxophones return on “What Remains,” which is perhaps the most song-like track in the entire collection thus far; at times it’s almost hummable, almost. “Marriage to Language” contains my favorite lyric of the entire album: “Perhaps I understand what you’re saying but don’t understand why you are saying it.” The dàn môi returns for a reprise of “Buried”; the different instrument and different key almost make it sound like a different song. I could actually image folks in an arena singing along to “Credo,” the album’s closing track. Carter’s melody is positively anthemic, and Sondheim’s resolutely primal tonal electric guitar accompaniment rarely upstages it. Then again, I live on that other planet where this stuff is folk music. - Frank J. Oteri

(Kathodik) Opera intima, calda e sottilmente persuasiva “Avatar Women”. Quieta delizia sospesa, incrocio di progressioni etno/dronanti, screziature impro, raga avant/futuribili e nebbioline psych folk/blues. Dove la voce di Azure Carter si distende in pose trance mediorientali, mentre l'arsenale di corde world (suroz, sarangi, oud, cura cumbus, saz elettrico, cura saz, pipa, viola, violino, chitarra elettrica e le lamelle del dan moi) di Alan Sondheim, tratteggia coordinate aspre e spirituali (un paio di uscite avantgarde sul finire dei sessanta su Esp-Disk, poi il tempo a slabbrarsi. Quel tanto che basta, per esser inserito nell'elenco di artisti citati da Stapleton e compagnia come influenze in occasione della loro prima uscita). A contribuir alla creazione di carnali quartetti free/weird, alla bisogna giungon i due sax di Christopher Diasparra ed Edward Schneider, accogliendoci in un'ipotesi spiritual/stracciona, profumata d'incenso ed altre erbette. “Avatar Women”, è un riuscitissimo invito lisergico di pietra e vento. - Marco Carcasi

(Improvijazzation Nation) Azure's vocals against various instruments from Alan (& others – check out the player list); this seems to be focused on "American Folk" music, in a most "non" traditional sense. The guitars on "Dark Robe" were enchanting on the intro, and the vocal is in near-trance state. The dozen songs on this release merit the attention of your ears, at least for one round… OTOH, this isn't my personal "cup of tea"…. the reason it made it for review is because it does have significant energy levels on the part of the players. Of the twelve tunes, my personal pick for favorite was the oddly-instrumented "Avatar Man With Dream Woman"… this one was quite interesting, actually. For listeners interested in exploring "other" music, this gets a RECOMMENDED. “EQ” (energy quotient) rating is 4.95. Get more information at the Public Eyesore page for this release. - Rotcod Zzaj