Instant (album)


Instant is a double compact disc by the Dutch experimental post-punk band The Ex. The band recorded the album in conjunction with many guest musicians, notably members of Holland's Instant Composers Pool for whom the album is partially named, the other part being that the Dutch term for "free improvisation" literally translates to "instant composition."

Background

The Ex had long collaborated with ICP members and featured those recordings on the double album Joggers and Smoggers and on the box set 6. Instant marked the band's first album of entirely instrumental and improvised music. Instant's 32 tracks feature shifting duos and trios of musicians performing on a wide array of conventional and non-conventional instruments. Though the entire album could have fit onto one 70-minute CD, the band formatted it for a briefer listening experience with each of Instant's 35-minute discs containing 16 short tracks.

Reception

Dean McFarlane's review for Allmusic is quite positive, calling it a culmination of the "stridently avant-garde direction" the band had taken "beginning with the Joggers and Smoggers album and explored extensively with cellist Tom Cora -- from the punchy chaotic punk rock of the band's '80s releases to total free improvisation." He writes that the "collection covers a lot of ground, from noisy vignettes in the vein of Fred Frith and Chris Cutler's workouts to subdued passages that recall even atonal avant-garde classical works; AMM and Derek Bailey also spring to mind. Instant is not all free-form, however -- in fact, the forms are held together by vague folk themes and the band's classic angular Captain Beefheart-like arrangements." He concludes by writing that the "two-CD set is certainly substantial in covering the band's multifaceted work, and with a group this unique and with so many compelling approaches that mix folk, punk, free jazz, and ethnic forms in such a singular fashion, there are few other recordings of this nature around." Trouser Press was similarly positive, calling it "icely annotated, bravely executed and totally cool."

Track listing

Disc 1
  1. "If the Hat Fits the Suit"
  2. "Duo Rumpus"
  3. "Kloptimog Twist"
  4. "Baars vs. Karekiet"
  5. "Keng Lil Surf"
  6. "Duo Triptych Too"
  7. "Lip Up, Stump"
  8. "So Low, Solex?"
  9. "Skoplje Bop"
  10. "Buildance"
  11. "Bratunac"
  12. "Horsemeal"
  13. "Expoobident"
  14. "Slow Sleeper
  15. "Duo Loom"
  16. "Te-Au-O-Tonga"
Disc 2
  1. "Travel On, Poor Bob"
  2. "What Inflexibility?"
  3. "Bon-Go Tell You Git-La La"
  4. "Duo Variola"
  5. "Meanwhile Back in Ozone Street"
  6. "Smuiger"
  7. "Rusticles"
  8. "Atoll"
  9. "Exile O'phonics"
  10. "Danse Maudit"
  11. "Knit Knack + Zoom"
  12. "Oh Muted Foghorn"
  13. "Duo Tonebone + Hitgit"
  14. "The Turtle the Hare"
  15. "Karremans' Last Measure"
  16. "ThereWereSonicBangsInTheSongsISang,ThereWasNothingTicklingNoOne"

    Personnel

The Ex

Various band members also play organ, accordion, samples + tape, djembé-springs, mbira, reed shakers, musical saw, acoustic guitar, double-bass, chairs.

Guest musicians