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Tim Motzer
(Blade of) Carlstedt Motzer Torn: The Flowering Am
by Mark Sullivan
The first sound that greets the listener to this new improvisational trio is the familiar strangled whammy bar manipulations of guitarist David Torn, joined by textural sounds by fellow guitarist Tim Motzer. Drummer Jeremy Carlstedt provides only a heartbeat rhythm initially, followed by cymbals and drums that only coalesce into a regular beat about halfway into the opener “Ping." It is the kind of open exploration expected from these adventurous musicians, ranging from calm to stormy and taking the listener ...
read morePercy Jones, Alex Skolnick, Kenny Grohowski, Tim Motzer: PAKT
by Mark Sullivan
It was the Plague Year, and musicians denied the ability to tour and play in front of a live audience quickly began to pivot to virtual concerts. As early as April performances from musician's homes started (including one large series that was titled Live From Our Living Rooms). By August some conventional performance venues had gotten into the act, including the Village Vanguard and Smalls Jazz Club in New York City. But this ShapeShifter Lab concert felt like a real ...
read moreJones / Skolnick / Grohowski / Motzer: PAKT
by Mike Jurkovic
Recent internal polling serves to prove that most actively conscious homo sapiens are seriously seeking out a few more hours of headspace a day. With that comes the need to fill it with anything but blinks, tweets, notifications or the incessant slate of current events. And with that comes a soundtrack: equal measures invention, noise, humor, daring. With that in mind, MoonJune Records presents this twin-disc set from guitarists Alex Skolnick, Tim Motzer (who kindly handles electronics), drummer Kenny Grohowski ...
read moreReuter / Motzer / Grohowski: Shapeshifters
by Glenn Astarita
These highly respected artists turn in an impressionable assault on progressive rock, extended with avant-garde tendencies and gobs of mind-bending improv via these four instantaneous compositions as they launch the cosmic proceedings with the 22- minute oeuvre, “Dark Sparks." Here, touch guitarist Markus Reuter (Stick Men, Mark Wingfield) and guitarist Tim Motzer (David Sylvian, Bandit 65) enact brooding and sanctified themes with menacing lines and existential EFX treatments, supported by drummer Kenny Grohowski's (Simulacrum, Dapp Theory) dexterous brushwork.
read moreMichelle Lordi: Break Up With the Sound
by C. Michael Bailey
Vocalist Michelle Lordi's house burned down at the end of 2017. That is a bracing life event from which one may find oneself at a brutally curious fork in the road. Lordi's Break Up With the Sound makes it seem that she blazed through Kubler Ross's five stages of loss and got to work on something so new, it smelled of white-hot creation. Lordi's modus operandi has been addressing the Great American Songbook, as evidenced by her densely competent Dream ...
read moreTim Motzer: Late-Night Soundscapes
by Geno Thackara
Natural evolution is always gradual yet relentless. jny: Philadelphia sound-sculptor Tim Motzer demonstrates the fact with two more extended improvisations to follow on from the electro-ambient Unseen Universe (1k, 2017). All three are solo recordings made in similar circumstances (played live for wee-hours radio broadcasts roughly a year apart), yet of course no two nights or events are ever the same. Tim Motzer Soak 1k Recordings 2017 We all need time to ...
read moreTim Motzer: Wandering the Depths of Space
by Geno Thackara
There are guitarists, and then there are sound sculptors who use the guitar as one tool among many (and of course there's no small overlap between the two). Tim Motzer happily resides in both camps but tends to lean toward the latter description most--when running a single axe through a continually changing array of jerry-rigged technology, it's not unusual for him to spend as much time twiddling knobs as he does fingering frets. With such a range of sonics to ...
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