Ben Bennett & John Collins McCormick - Pluperfect CD-R(Ohio / Indiana) -More than Perfect
-Hadn't Ben Bennett - Percussion, Membranes.
John Collins McCormick - Amplified drum, Laptop
Recorded in Regel Hall, Marlboro College, Marlboro Vermont 2015
Reviews: (Disaster Amnesiac) Second up for review from the recently received eh? Records batch, Pluperfect, and Disaster Amnesiac will warn: be careful if you listen to it early in the morning in your car. This is what I did, and the opening high pitched scrawls from Bennett and Collins McCormick gave me a pretty hardcore ear blast to start an AM commute. Being a fan of Noise and experimental forms, even as I'm waking up, not like it was a bad thing to have happened, but....most definitely a shock! Once over all that, and after repeated listening, I have found Pluperfect to be a fascinating trip into the unique sound worlds of Ben Bennett and John Collins McCormick, one that seems to unfold at a pace totally under the control of these two musicians. The method seems to something like this: smaller, quieter themes are brought forth from various sound sources, then expanded upon in rhythmic form, then folded up and back into silence, from which a new theme emerges. What Disaster Amnesiac has enjoyed immensely as I've listened is the duration of those second aspects; Bennett and Collins McCormick do admirable jobs of controlling the pace of these various emerging themes. This pacing is admirable and deeply moving. From a more technical point, the way in which John embeds laptop electronics within the overall sound field is really cool; often times it seems as though laptop generated sound starts to trump acoustic instrumentation, but this does not happen on Pluperfect. Disaster Amnesiac has mentioned how incredible Ben's stick control is, and it's utilized herein. Some of my favorite moments when listening to the disc have featured what Bennett drumming on what I believe to be a type of barrel drum, seen at Berkeley Arts Festival a year or two back. Pluperfect's two tracks, More than Perfect and Hadn't, clocking in at about an hour's length, provide these and obviously many more experimental sounds. I only wished that I'd been there at the recording, listening as their vibes bounced off of the walls of Marlboro College's Regal Hall! - Mark Pino
(Vital Weekly) Ben Bennett plays percussion and membranes and John Collins McCormick plays amplified drum and laptop. They have two very long pieces of improvised music, recorded in 2015. I think both of these pieces, thirty-three and thirty-eight minutes are way too long to hold my attention — although I easily blame that on the heat and the short night of no sleep because of that. But this music seemed very hard to take in. In the first piece, 'More Than Perfect' their percussion duet is very upfront and loud, but not noisy per
se; it has highly shrieking tones, direct bangs on the kit and something that was less easy to define in terms of sound; I blame that on the use of membrane and laptop. It very rarely stays quiet for long, even when it has that direct hit character. It bursts and it cracks. The second piece 'Hadn't' shares a similar course in terms of directness but has longer parts that turned out to be way quieter and becomes effectively a different kind of piece, and I must say it is the kind of music I liked better than the first one. That seemed in comparison all about effect, loud, cracking and bursting, whereas in the second piece it is all about control and interaction. Or so I like to believe I guess, but even at that I think some form of editing could have been applied. - Frans de Waard
(Kathodik) Percussioni e membrane, laptop e tamburi amplificati. Registrati dal vivo al Marlboro College (Vermont) nel 2015. Due (troppo) lunghe performance che piegano fra colpi singoli trattati, brevi silenzi, micro meccanismi in movimento, strusci metallici, rimbalzi profondi, piccoli manuali di ornitologia zoppa, qualche rimando/rattoppo etno/tribale e un poco di ematomi violacei in libertà. La botta se l'approccio è svagato, può esser pesa. Ma l'effetto ammasso rovinoso/gratuito vien risparmiato. Panoramiche d'insieme claudicanti e rattrappite, traforate di frequenze ostinate, dove le voci strumentali, argomentano senza sovrapporsi insensate. Scatti, impatti e una certa sgualcita distensione (da ortica fra le mani...). Se amate il suono di sedie dialoganti, fatevi sotto. (La prossima volta se possibile, anche un poco meno. Settantuno minuti son proprio volerci male...). - Marco Carcasi
(KFJC) AKA Charles Lareau and Voost Vistz. Field recordings. Garbled windy gobbledygook but good! Motorcycles, bar (including juke box music), subway loudspeaker, piano, street chatter, train moving across track, and other tasty treats. - Billie Joe Tolliver
