Selected igOr OGOGO - Solo View album reviews

Home

 

igOr OGOGO CD Solo View by toxicpete.co.uk

Ok, you'll need your experimentation head on for this one; 'Solo View' from igOr OGOGO is a breathless, avant-garde jaunt through post-modern jazz experimentation. Only for the brave, 'Solo View' will test your nerve and push you all the way to the edge.

If you can get to the edge and stop yourself falling off, 'Solo View' will give you a new ledge to stand on, you'll find new depths to plunge into and open up whole new territories that you probably didn't know were there. This is not for those of a nervous disposition though - it's brash and spiky, it's relentless in its form and it'll sort the men from the boys (experimentally speaking!). Personally, I found the tracks got easier to get into as the album progressed - at the start I was a little unsure but as it drew to a conclusion I felt compelled to press 'play' again - and I did - and I enjoyed 'Solo View' much more second time around!

'Solo View' could be Terry Riley plays Stockhausen! Seemingly heavily digital in form (or is it? could it all in fact be 'real' instruments?) but, give it a chance and you might just find a new 'friend' in here. This is complex, edgy and mighty trying at times. But, it can also be rewarding - you just have to let go of any inhibitions you have, pick up on the vibes and let them take you to wherever you fancy. 'Solo View' by igOr OGOGO is rammed with ragged soundscapes and razor-edged textures that cut to the quick. It's full of multi-layered instrumentation with not a sample in sight (my information tells me!!). It's a thick, viscous soup of sound that at times is uneasy and at others, evocative. At times there's discord, then there's unity and harmony and most of it is tempo-challenged. It aint easy, and that's the truth!

Now, 'Solo View' is gonna appeal to a pretty small audience (comparatively speaking), it aint gonna be ridin' high in any charts any day now. But, for those that can open themselves up to modern experimental music and manage to get a buzz from whole thing, 'Solo View' is well worth a listen. I'm not gonna lie, it is pretty hard to get into but, there's some massive stuff in here - there's some great guitar work that sounds like Frank Zappa playing John McLaughlin or visa versa. So, all-in-all, 'Solo View' from igOr OGOGO is extremely well done and stunning within its form but unfortunately will suffer from having a very restricted and restrictive fan-base. Good stuff - one for the intrepid musical journeymen but probably just too much for most people out there.

by toxic pete

  IgOr: Solo View from Here Comes The Flood                                                    

                                                The Netherlands

There is a thin line between screwing up and coming up with avant-garde guitar playing. Igor Grigoriev performing as IgOr has been at the forefront for decades and is a true original. His latest album Solo View is a well structured collection of compositions that leave plenty of space.

Born in Moscow, he is currently based in LA and teaching guitar, music history, jazz history, ensembles, and improvisation at Los Angeles Harbor College and Cerritos College in Los Angeles, CA. Starting out as a rock musician in Russia he slowly drifted towards jazz and avant-garde.

Solo View is an album that needs be discovered track by track. The Japanese sounding notes and the drilling noises in White Doll sound sweet when you listen to them at first, only to realise that it is in fact a pretty dark piece. IgOr pushes his guitar to the limit to great effect. He is a painter with six strings conjuring up images of the young Bach composing on a electric guitar. If David Lynch ever decides to make a film noir detective, tracks like Whatever Parker Wants and After A Long Day should feature prominently on the soundtrack.

by Hans Werksman

Solo View is released on iiirecords.com.        Buy it at CD Baby.        MP3: igOr - Bach             igorogogo.com              en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igor_Grigoriev

 

 

 

 

 

Igor Grigoriev - Solo View  from The Mag, UK

Solo View is the manic work of Russian born avant-garde composer Igor Grigoriev. If you dare risk stepping into the mind's eye of this classically trained free-improv merchant, you're in for ride - not so much a ride as a dismantling of the nervous system.

Originally inspired by Jazz legend Charlie Parker and classical virtuoso J S Bach, Grigoriev has been involved in leftfield improvisation and avant-garde acoustics. He has led such bands as Roof and Asphalt, but as the title of the album suggests, he has found a vehicle for his own brain splitting ventures. The final 8-track project is an exploration into altered states of consciousness, psyched-out dysphoria and schizophrenic improvisation.

On first impressions the compositions seem to have no central focus or structure. 'Dollar E' is enough to send any acid-freak over the edge of oblivion with its ice sheet of titanic swirls and space age jiggery pokery.

Its unfocused streams of consciousness seem to appear as some practical joke played on the unsuspecting listener (victim). But beneath the bludgeoning nightmare of ungrammatical psychedelia, there are nuances of melody and subtlety. 'After a Long Day' snatches the melodic core of The Police's 'Message in a Bottle' and transmogrifies it into an ethereal collage of peripheral sound warpage.

The hallucinogenic soundscapes bleed out of every pore of this album and it's hard to swallow the whole pill at once. 'Whatever Parker Wants' descends into jazz-fusion madness with atonal wandering guitar phrases and gurgles of static noise, which seem to have emanated from the outer- reaches of another dimension.

This album is certainly one hell of a trip. It's really hard what to make of it. In the eyes of some it could be regarded as an avant-garde masterpiece.

Others may claim it to be one hell of a cracking joke. Whatever it is, it's not easy-listening. Some adventurous explorers may find some solace in the rare excursions into melody, but on the whole, it is bloody mental!

Written By: Jamie S

 

Igor Ogogo - Solo View 

Contributed by: Perceptron

Artist: Igor Ogogo   Title: Solo View   Label: III Records

Genre: Experimental Noise

Igor Grigoriev is a Los Angeles  “classical avant-garde” composer and guitarist responsible for this “Solo View”. He's the son of Russian parents and was born in Moscow. He studied piano from the age of six, but he later got interested in guitar. His influences are very diverse: jazz, Be-bop culture, the cool school, the improvisations of John Coltrane, noize-jazz, polka circuit bending, minimalism, and Bodom. He developped much guitar improvisation and created two formations: “Roof” (free style experimental) and “Asphalt” (rock avant-garde), made collaborations (f.i. Ira & Igor) and created Ogogo, a kind of experimental and improvised music collective. It's difficult to classify such project, for it strives to experiment, to mix genres. Clearly, it is very underground and unusual.

“Dollar E” is highly provocative: mixing sweet organ sounds and guitar arpeggios with some deformed annoying voice. The track seems to be almost devoid of any logic and features contrasting elements... Guitar harmonics  introduce an aggressive, oppressive and obsessive atmosphere made of metallic noises, electronic and distorted sounds.  “Key Me” explores a magma of different sounds lead by a low beat – whose pulsations don't show obvious rhythmics – and constant noises of guitar strings.

“For A Better Future” stands as a joyful electronic symphony featuring various electronic noises, smoothly thundering distorted noises, jazzy hyperfast guitar improvisations together with bells' samples. On “Whatever Parker Wants”, distorted guitar parts are articulated around a repetitive low beat, the whole adorned by many weird sounds such as gratings, white noises and electronic-sounding noises.. “Bach” begins in a darker fashion, with some sadic and oppressive intro. Samples of cello, airplane, choirs and bells are present as well as other echoed noises. Guitars appear sporadically with a surprising sound, not aggressive, very melodic. The sound collage present an emotionnally ambivalent set: the rather melodic and neutral tune is rhythmed by whipping noises...

The dissonance is the guest star on “Love or Leave” together with some minimalist percussion. It gives an  impression of difficulty to find balance, of indecision and vertigo, maybe as a faithful expression the throbbing dilemma: “Love or Leave”. A reptitive guitar melody is accompanied by various hi-hat-like sound while another guitar layer tends to improvise other riffs.  The final “White Doll” consists in a strange bass line that leads us towards noisy, eletronic sounds and machine samples awakening gore thoughts... The atmosphere gets darker and even threatening because of some metalic noises and because of all the creeping sounds running from left to right...

Many different guitar sounds are featured, as well as many kind of noises made with guitars. But, not only: also many other noises, samples compose these eclectic sound collages. As it's rather improvisation, difficult to find a structure. But, repetition of the same patterns is common and although improvised, there seem to be some kind of coherence. Stereo effect is interesting and well used. Quite an hermetic music: reserved for specialists and guitar maniacs.

 

If you want to deep-freeze hot eyeballs, you'll need an OGOGO..

CD Feature/ igOr OGOGO: "Solo View" by Fred M. Wheeler - Tokafi - Germany

Charley Parker and Bach for heroes: Wastes no second thinking about how anybody else may judge his music.

 

Many mysteries surround this CD production to say the least. When has it been recorded? We don’t know. Who plays the instruments? We can assume that the band OGOGO is very much involved. Without any doubt: all compositions have been done by igOr. Recorded in Los Angeles, London and Moscow. On the iii record label.

Do we need the information not provided? After listening to the CD I agree with igOr: No, not really. So just let us take a determined startup and jump right into the music, which provides an intimate view, a Solo View, to be precise, into the musical, avant-garde world of Igor Grigoriev.

References are made to two of his heroes, Charley Parker and Johann Sebastian Bach. Are they his heroes? I can only assume they are, since in both pieces, ‘Whatever Parker Wants’ and ‘Bach’ we clearly hear the basic influences of both of these musicians. In ‘Bach’, the fugue is a recurring theme, although very much influenced and alienated by the works of free improvisation. But nonetheless, even electronically-based sounds stay in the confines of the very strict regiment of the original fugue, even if they sometimes wander erratically out of line, only to return to the original scheme. An extraordinary example of how music doesn’t depend on time and how even the seemingly most distant influences can find a common home.

The piece on Charley Parker takes a similar route. Here, we find the same appeals, many a time experiencing the typical Parker-phrases, only to find them constructed even further into new and more adventurous musical surroundings.

But igOr doesn’t stop there. Honestly, I don’t believe for a second that he wastes a minute of time thinking about how anybody else may judge his music. The integration of various influences, regardless of whether they are born out of jazz, rock n’ roll, extremely experimental stuff or classic, can be found all over this CD. Bass lines or percussion, most likely electronically produced and often limited to a snare and maybe a very distant bass drum, guitar riffs, soli, you name it. It’s all there, sometimes rough and raw-cut, then again with an almost tender ambience. At times seemingly looping, but then there are always little differences to be detected, which alter the sound ever so often in a favourable fashion. This technique defines the underlying theme and reflects its intellectual background in an impressive way.

It is surely no coincidence, that OGOGO recently won ‘The 17th Annual Los Angeles Music Awards’ in the category ‘Experimental’ for the aforementioned 'Bach’. Truly this is a remarkable achievement for igOr and his band, consisting, if I’m correctly informed, of ever so often changing band members, sometimes operating in a bigger, then again in a smaller setting.

However that may be, „Solo View“ is a CD, that has been masterfully structured, masterfully arranged and masterfully performed. A real treat for those open to new and experimental rides into the musical kingdom of exciting adventures, for those who can enjoy almost any influences out of music’s history and thrilling excursion into areas, where new musical paths are discovered right here and right now. An all-around impressive work. Congrats, igOr and OGOGO!                                                                 By Fred M. Wheeler                       

Homepage: III Records        Homepage: igOr OGOGO

 

 

IGOR OGOGO  -  Solo View di Corrado Nizza - Artists & Bands - Italy                                                                                                               Igor Grigoriev: Guitars                                  Sul web:        Igor Grigorev Official Website         Igor Grigorev @MySpace Nonostante Ogogo sia un monicker uso ad ospitare piccole formazioni alla guida del compositore russo Igor Grigoriev (anche professore nella prestigiosa Harbor di Los Angeles), questa volta accoglie le istanze soliste del leader e le sue improvvisazioni per chitarra, idealmente imparentate nel tempo tanto con Charlie Parker quanto con la “chance music” di Cage. L'anima di Solo View giace innanzitutto nei processi auto-rigeneranti degli strati sonori di “Key Me” e della successiva “For A Better Future” che riadatta le stesse idee su di un impianto ancora più “free”, in cui gli stralci di musica concreta ed un arsenale di filtri e wah-wah concorrono ad un'esperienza di virtuosismo per rumori generati (principalmente) con la chitarra. A seguito si trovano due tributi. L'industriale “Bach” è tra le varie cose un collage che incorpora anche squarci di violino e organo. E “Whatever Parker Wants” poggia su scale blues e riff (proto)hard-rock, occupando con prepotenza uno spazio babelico da cui un vaneggiante, sgolato, sax alto è lasciato emergere a fatica e sotterrato a più riprese. D'altra parta non si trovano particolari preziosismi o sofisticazioni in un divertissement come “Dollar E”, né organo e fisarmonica rendono più affascinante il ripetuto tema nella tutto sommato regolare jam “After a Long Day”, mentre a sorpresa “Love or Leave” si rivela la track più “razionale”, quasi fuori luogo nel marasma aleatorio del disco. A ben vedere i suoi mantra chitarristici ciclicamente “disturbati” troneggerebbero come track sperimentale in un album di digital-folk. Alla conclusiva “White Doll” è quindi lasciato il compito di sintetizzare l'album ancorando ad un semplice basso continuo gli elementi che hanno costituito il terreno comune delle varie improvvisazioni: elucubrazioni i cui sedimenti fanno affidamento sull'abuso di filtri, l'impiego di suoni trovati e la citazione di generi più tradizionali (jazz, blues, country) attraverso il riff. L'assenza di vera pretenziosità ed anzi un atteggiamento sanamente ironico non evitano la constatazione di trovarsi per l'ennesima volta di fronte ad un disco che dell'avanguardia mantiene i difetti (gratuità, auto-indulgenza, scarsa comunicatività) e al contempo si presenta sprovvisto dei pregi (innovazione, capacità di rottura, nuove idee). Il risultato è ossimoricamente un'avanguardia di genere, che immutabile si pasce di restare incollata ad alcune delle grandi rivoluzioni di metà Novecento, in un innocuo gioco post-modernistico che si accontenta di buttare nella mischia soluzioni stilistiche da tempo assorbite e storicizzate. di Corrado Nizza