The cover image and title of “Kinison – Goldthwait“ may raise some questions, especially for those not living in America. From the website notes, we learn that “Saul is taking some form of inspiration from the well documented public feud between the American stand up comedians Sam Kinison (foul mouthed ranter), and Bobcat Goldthwait (Zed from the Police Academy films). The dispute (supposedly over who stole whose act) came to a head on U.S. ‘shock-jock’ Howard Stern’s radio show, when a boozy sounding Kinison called up Goldthwait live on air, leading to a rather fiery showdown.”
From what I read and heard about this incident, to me this just sounds like a pitiful, embarrasing moment of horrible, (so-called) shock-radio. So it’s fascinating to find that this particular incident is the source of inspiration of this new Danny Saul album.
As Saul says about this: “The track titles may provide something of an ‘ambiguous narrative’ which the listener can take or leave.”
On second thought, there is a remarkable resemblance between this album and the radio incident it was inspired by.
Things start off rather calm with the three short parts called “Kinison”, although in the very first minutes there’s a beautiful distortion in the sound, indicating this peace will not last.
The distortion (in itself a Danny Saul trademark) thickens on “Robert Francis (Bobcat Goldthwait)”, just like the radio argument escalates and finally erupts to inflamed chaos in “On Howard Stern”.
How’s that for a description of an experimental drone album!?
No-one can accuse Danny Saul from being predictible in any way.
Danny Saul is rapidly becoming a household name popping up all over the experimental improv scene. He has recorded with Greg Haines (as Liondaler), Peter Broderick, Machinefabriek, Simon Scott and Jasper TX, and recently toured Japan with Machinefabriek and Kleefstra’s Piiptsjilling (keep an eye out for their beautiful special tour compilation album “That It Stays Winter Forever“, by the way!).
His music usually does not let you lean back easily for too long, since he clearly is not afraid of adding some sharp edges.
Like Wil Bolton‘s “Time Lapse” (reviewed before), “Kinison – Goldthwait” is released on Hibernate Recordings, a label that is quickly becoming one of ambient/experimental music’s important labels.