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CD
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EM 1085CD
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This is the debut full-length solo CD from Osaka, Japan-based experimental electro-acoustic musician, Tim Olive. The Specialist was recorded in December 2008 and January 2009 in Osaka. Featuring Olive's microscopic, meticulous sounds, produced with his electric guitar/bass hybrid machine -- essentially, a piece of wood with two magnetic pick-ups, a bass string or two, and occasionally an unwound guitar string. No effects, just an analog preamp. All reverb sounds are from springs and/or metal plates applied directly to the pickups. Everything was recorded in real time, with overdubs on only two tracks. There are no song titles, as the music is not programmatic and the artist does not wish to impose any interpretations on the listener. Inspired by the challenges he encountered during solo live sets in Japan, Australia and Singapore, and with recording and performance collaborations with artists such as Alfredo Costa Monteiro, Shinichi Isohata, Katsura Mouri (BusRatch), Joel Stern, Adam Sussmann; plus long-running duos with Jeffrey Allport, Bunsho Nishikawa and Kelly Churko, The Specialist is the culmination of Olive's long artistic history; first in his homeland of Canada as an improv guitarist, and into the heart of Japan's experimental music scene. There is a fairly wide variety of dynamic ranges, densities and approaches here, though all pieces are concerned with texture and implied pulse, rather than tonality and metrical rhythm -- which the artist admits could be construed as a kind of specialism. The title refers to the gentleman on the cover (the photograph looted from negatives found in an abandoned building in Nagoya, with added color map transparencies in slide frames) and not necessarily to the artist himself, though the extraordinarily high level of work on this record implies long years of specialized work with the smallest and most compelling of resonances deconstructed from the guitar.
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