Nurse With Wound List # 1: Chamberpot

I've been down in the feces lately, so this blog didn't exactly rocket forth like I intended it to. It's pretty hard to force any kind of creativity when you're scraping for meaning and direction in your life. Fortunately for myself (and all other lost and aching souls) I have the utterly abstract clunking, popping, and shuffling of European free-improv quartet, Chamberpot, to ease my restless heart. To be honest, I'm not exactly Mr.McImprov. I certainly enjoy the droning, clanging, nonsensical sounds of AMM, Derek Bailey, the Instant Composers Pool stable, Alexander Von Schlippenbach, and those Company LPs, but I'm more of a dabbler than a full fledged fanboy. That said, I can't really write up any comparatives regarding the LP pictured above... although, that's probably for the best, as it might discredit the musicians responsible. If you're unfamiliar with the genre of free improvisation, a key principle of the style is to attempt to create music spontaneously and independent from all established reference points in the musicians mind and muscle memory. Of course, doing such is arguably impossible, and to semi-quote Elliot Sharp (since I can't actually locate the quote itself), truly free improvisation is only possible at the hands of an amnesiac.
All that said, this is weird stuff even for the genre it falls in. Chamberpot were a one-shot quartet helmed by violinist Phil Wachsmann, who was apparently a member of Keith Tippet's awesome Ark ensemble and Derek Bailey's Iskra 1903. The sound is what you might call ultra scratchy, and is so ridiculously abstract and anti-swing it almost comes across as a caricature of the European improv sound. Consisting only of double bass, violin, clarinet, and alternating between oboe and cor anglais (all played at their most primal and un-musical), this is the kind of alien shit that reminds me of just how disarmed I felt when I first discovered free jazz. Fucking awesome. It's a bit difficult to describe or recommend this any further, considering how "out there" it is, but if you're looking for something completely ridiculous to make your friends mock you, hit me up and I'll send you an upload.
By the way, in regards to the headline, I first learned of this album the way most people likely did - the infamous, Nurse With Wound list - on which they get a namedrop. If a search for "Chamberpot" brought you to this blog, there's a likelihood you're already familiar with the massive list of ridiculously obscure and "out there" tunes compiled by Steven Stapelton, John Fothergill, and Herman Pathak in the inner sleeves of Chance Meeting... and to To The Quiet Men From A Tiny Girl. I kind of have an on-and-off obsession with it, seeing as it contains so many absurdities like the one above, so expect lots more posts as I keep on diggin' through the list.