Nerve Beats: 1973
By Han Bennink
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Track listing
- 1 Bumble Rumble 4:18
- 2 Spooky Drums 26:04
- 3 Nerve Beats 16:36
- Total length: 46:58
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7 Reviews
I like this album because it shows how Free Improv can be playful and fun. It's the gleeful abandon of Bennink which makes this so appealing; he's basically like a little boy in a sweet shop running round the stage with all these instruments at his disposal. Can he even play all of them? I'm really not sure. But it doesn't matter.
My favourite part is in "Spooky Drums" where it sounds like he's vomiting into a trombone. Han gets some bonus points for getting Darth Vader on stage at the start of the title track, by the way. At least that's what it sounds like.
YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!!!
My favourite part is in "Spooky Drums" where it sounds like he's vomiting into a trombone. Han gets some bonus points for getting Darth Vader on stage at the start of the title track, by the way. At least that's what it sounds like.
YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!!!
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Fucking awesome when you keep in mind that it's all one man on his own. Still 3.5* as an overall listening experience, but definitely worth your time.
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Han Bennink turned drumming into fucking, and this is not a metaphor.
Even if it will work better in the groups, this solo recording is a very interesting experience.
Even if it will work better in the groups, this solo recording is a very interesting experience.
Published
I would not be able to describe this recording as thoroughly or as elegantly as the other reviewers, but what I immediately felt from this live record was that Bennink seems to be totally tormenting and fucking with his rather rigid German audience, instructing them when it is appropriate to clap and startling them at particularly sparse portions of his "performance". He almost seems to be holding them hostage, which absolutely is amazing. Yeah, he's the best drummer of all time for certain, but his real talent as a performer in complete contempt of his audience is what totally shines through. His command of the collective psyche of a room is as on target as his playing, which is through the roof.
Published
European Free Improv's crown (clown?) prince of slapstick, notorious for his unflagging energy and for turning props into percussive implements while working his way across a stage, sticks in hand, playing off walls, boxes, trashcans, and boards. Nerve Beats, a previously unreleased solo performance recorded in Bremen in 1973, finds Bennink employing "drums, tablas, rhythm-machine, anything/everything" as well as various horns and whatever else happened to be on hand, in his inimitable way. He rallies the crowd with martial rolls and whistle blasts before unleashing a hurricane of percussive force, thrashing around his makeshift kit with the fluid agility of an octopus and the instincts of a surgeon. Bennink intersperses thrilling paradiddles and poundings with scat vocalese, didjeridoo-like rumbles, woodwind noises, feverish fire-dance rhythms, and yelps more suited to a rodeo contestant or caged monkey. But it's the evocative interludes of bowed and rattled sounds that resonate longest and strongest.
Published
Just intense! Bennink beats, smashes, makes noises, yells, plays various wind instruments and makes noise on this live performance from 1973, and it is a whirlwind. I might very well have a new hero. Free improv and performance art go hand in hand very well, and I just wish I was there.
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