Sean Trane
While The ECM label holds a lot of prestige in my eyes, I have two main gripes about their overall output: a good deal of their releases are a bit too close to new-agey elevator music, or another consequent part is very close to obtuse dissonant music approaching music concrete. Needless to say that with Braxton’s presence on the present album, Afternoon is very much in the second category, this despite Chick Corea or Bernie Maupin’s inputs.
Don’t start running away either, because if I spoke of dissonance, it’s still quite bearable, because the music is quite reflective and descriptive (of the Georgia Faun soundscapes), and you won’t have to deal with the raging madness of Peter Brotzmann’s sonics. It’s also easy to dismiss this kind of album as “something done 100 times before”, but the album was released in 1970, which means that it is more of a groundbreaker in the genre than a consolidating block. It’s rather difficult for me to describe the two lengthy pieces (one aside), because I somewhat lack the tools of comprehension and the patience for this type of music. Of course, it’s not hard to imagine a deep forest where different species of animals are occupying the territory like a woodpecker via percussions, other birds via the wind instrument’s squeaks and some mammals ‘s growls via Braxton and Brown’s sax squeals. Maybe extra kudos should be given to the musicians for not taking the easy way out by playing on creek/river, rain or wind sounds, but thinking about it now, it might have made the album more accessible. Which I’m sure was not the intended goal.