Secret Chiefs 3/UR – Medium Aevum / Stars And Stripes Forever (7"

" The UR piece, “Medium Aevum” is the original of a song Ishraqiyun has been covering for many years, familiar from SC3 live gigs (but never recorded). Here it is heard in its radically different «original» fuzzed-out format. The flipside is FORMS' energetic and comprehensive piano-roll band organ rendition of the Sousa masterpiece, “Stars and Stripes Forever.” Faithful in all details to the original composition, the tune gets a temperamental update according to the mood of the times. It's all done on the decaying early 20th Century devices of the FORMS «Mausolée Mécanique», which here are manipulated by Matt Lebofsky's decrepit fingers, William Winant and Kenny Grohowski's dusty beaters, Timba Harris' rat-chewed piccolo bowings, and Spruance's endlessly cobwebbed weavings."