This morning began with my listening to the third album in clarinetist Ben Goldberg’s 8 Albums on August 8 releases. The title of the album is Dog Hypnotic, and Goldberg plays a diversity of different instruments in the clarinet family. Kenny Wollesen accompanies on percussion, including pitched instruments such as bass marimba and vibraphone. My last encounter with him goes all the way back to March of 2015, when I wrote about his participation in Goldberg’s Orphic Machine album. The recording was engineered by Michael Coleman, who also interjected some “sound effects” of his own invention.
“Dog Hypnotic” is the fourth track on the album; but I was more interested in two tracks that acknowledge another (and more menacing) animal: “Python” and “Python Groove.” That said, I would not call the first of those two tracks “menacing.” Rather, it acknowledges a wild animal with improvisatory tropes that definitely go wild! More important, however, is how each of the tracks establishes its own unique dispositions, making the entire album an engaging journey unto itself. Unless I am mistaken, that journey includes a venture into gamelan sonorities on the “Say Goodbye” track.
Cover of the album being discussed (from its Bandcamp Web page)
As is the case with all of the albums in this series, the cover designs are informative but neutral. In other words, no dogs appear on the album cover! To be fair, however, “Dog Hypnotic” is the only one of the thirteen tracks that is even remotely related to dogs. Far more important, however, is the rich diversity of sonorities that emerge from the diversity of instruments performed by both Goldberg and Wollensen responsible for that sonic journey.
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