roland p. young – isophonic boogie woogie

Isophonic Boogie Woogie is Roland P. Young’s solo album from 1980 - the year he also left California and moved to New York to absorb himself in the 80s avant garde scene there. His career featured radio djing (which he was fired from for his radical political commentaries), ska new wave band the Offs, and a number of successes and failures in his dedication to the cosmic minimalism he calls the “Infinite Isophonic Source”, which has something to do with the “Infinite”.

Honest Jons described this as “Afro-Steve Reich-style kalimba“, which sold it to me straight off. It was reissued on Japanese label Em four years ago, and as such, the sleevenotes are almost entirely in Japanese, the only major exception being a quote from the man himself, the last sentence of which reads:

“Make yourself small and you will be great. Know you are nothing and you will be infinite. At the very least, don’t make such a big deal about yourself and you will be all that much closer to the truth”

This informs the music: constructions of kalimba, wind and electronics crafting a sound which is at once unassuming and absorbing – stretching towards the cosmic infinite. He comes across almost Eleatic in his somewhat opaque approach, as if striving to transcend the perceived illusion of the existence as seperate and discrete parts, instead driving towards the idea of a unified, indivisible and homogenous cosmos; one all-consuming omnipresent whole.

Young paints with varied instrumentation, in strikingly stripped back compositions built of a few key elements. The opener, Crystal Motions, is built in three fluid movements – the dream-like kalimba segues into transcendent vocals then draws sharp saxophone lines. Row Land consists solely of an electronic bass clarinet, played like a train rushing over rails; a deep chugging bass which is soulfully deep but with a mechanical sharpness from the current passing through.

Roland P. Young – Crystal Motions

Roland P. Young – Row Land

Currently, Young is obsessed with the Native American Flute (he has acquired a number of NAFs) and has made a number of albums using the instrument, which was introduced to him by Sky Redhawk in New Mexico a few years back. Intrestingly, isophonic is not a real word, thus obscuring the weird world of Roland P. Young even further.