CD Review: Marc Ribot - Silent Movies

Marc Ribot

Silent Movies

(Pi) http://www.pirecordings.com/

Instrumental music has always evoked visual images to me. It probably has a lot to do with Sesame Street and the way they would combine outdoor films with catchy music that really fit the scene. There was one clip in particular that showed a time lapse image of tree during the seasons, with some fairly free jazz behind it - long trumpet tones and spazzy drumming. For that reason, Herbie Mann's "Comin' Home Baby" - one of the first songs I remember hearing, was loaded with mental imagery - out-of-focus lights during the vibes solo, my dad's voice during the bass solo (he played bass too, so that probably had something to do with it).

Marc Ribot might have been thinking somewhere along that same wavelength when putting together the music for his new solo album. After performing the soundtrack for Charlie Chaplin's silent film The Kid, Ribot assembled this set, which includes music he wrote for a documentary called El General about Plutarco Elias Calles of Mexico, and an unreleased film called Drunken Boat. Some other tracks came from "projects that never existed outside my head," which means he was probably seeing footage in his mind and using that to guide him as he played.

This is not a set by Ribot the skronk man (although there is some nice feedback in "Natalia in E-flat Major," which sounds exactly like the beginning of the garage deep cut "Hot Smoke and Sassafras," for those who are keeping track of such minutiae). This album spotlights Ribot the more pensive and lyrical player. In his notes he talks about the underlying tragedy in the plot of The Kid, wherein Chaplin's tramp tries to create a real family with an abandoned kid. The piece of the same name builds on the sweetness of that story, finding a glimmer in a situation that would otherwise break your heart. The warmth of his playing comes out all over the album, and even when the brittle Ribot tone of his Tom Waits tenure appears on "Empty," it doesn't have as much shrapnel surrounding it.

Silent Movies only comes up short when several of the songs lack something without the visual imagery to accompany them. Many of them feel kind of spare, with chords and some single note melodies on top of them, and neither of them move forward, dynamically or harmonically. They just get a little repetitive. Unless of course, Ribot expects listeners to add their own mental reel of images.

Adding to the solo Ribot guitar, Keefus Ciancia is credited on five tracks with "soundscapes." This credit includes what sounds like faint cymbal rolls that are just loud enough to make you listen closer to make sure they weren't imagined. Other times, he contributes what could either be the ghost of Rowland S. Howard or late night Manhattan street construction. It makes interesting additions to the music and picks it up when the similarities begin to appear between tracks.

"Sous Le Ciel De Paris," once a hit for Edith Piaf, gives the album it's token cover and also closes it out. But before the disc stops spinning, Ciancia adds 1:45 of low atmospheric sound (This is too calm to be called "noise.") It almost sounds like it's meant to evoke the image of Ribot picking up his guitar case and walking off into the night, while the credits roll on the screen.