Customer Reviews

Fall of Us All

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This album is like no other in my collection. On this album Steve Tibbets succeeds in being both loud and atmospheric at the same time. He uses plenty of distortion on his guitar, but this is not the distorted guitar of the rock bands. He creates a great variety of guitaristic effects. Another highlight of this album is the percussion. This is excellent improvised music. Beyond just the technical details of the music, there is something to this music that I can't really describe. It is something atmospheric, something solemn, something meditative. Enjoy!

Steve Tibbetts is a difficult artist to categorize. While the German-based ECM was (at one time) the home of jazz guitarists Pat Metheny, John Abercrombie and Ralph Towner, Tibbetts' music seems more a product of Jimi Hendrix and Frank Zappa than Jim Hall or Wes Montgomery. Throw into the mix the wordless vocals on some tracks and the use of tabla and synthesizer, and Tibbetts and the other musicians on this CD produce some powerful music--not to mention amazing guitar pyrotechnics from Tibbetts himself.

Also worth seeking out are his self-titled debut and the follow-up "YR" on the Frammis label. I have these both on vinyl--I'm not aware that they were ever released on CD--and the guitar playing is nothing short of stunning.

"The Fall of Us All" was Tibbetts final release on ECM before signing with Hannibal/Rykodisk. While his earlier ECM releases are good, they don't have the edge this does. On these eleven instrumentals, Tibbetts performs on both acoustic and electric guitars with an amazing technique that will leave you mesmerized. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

After the disappointment of Big Map Idea and another incredibly long wait ( almost six years!), Steve Tibbetts drops the BOMB. Though Safe Journey remains my sentimental favorite, The Fall of Us All is Steve Tibbetts' greatest album. The first half of the disc is taken up by the most firebreathing insanity he's ever recorded. Tidal waves of guitar distortion roar over a truly savage bed of percussion. The first time I heard it, I wanted to black out from the sheer intensity of it all. The remainder of the album is more pensive and meditative, highlighted by the beautiful solo guitar piece "Drinking Lesson." The Fall of Us All is an overwhelming experience. Don't waste time, order it. Right now. END

It's difficult to describe the style of Tibbetts' music because it's absolutely unique. No one makes music of a similar style. No one. And if that were all there were to this stuff it might merit some attention - but this music is so much more.

It's probably fair to say that Tibbetts' music is not for the timid. This is enormously intense music of great power as well as great subtlety. The dynamic range is enormous, with passages of quiet probing yielding to passages of ferocious attacks of percussion and distorted guitar. There's a vision and a symbol here of life's intense complexity and dynamic range, and the listener whose brain also works these channels of thought and emotion is likely to experience a powerful confirmation of their sense of life. For those not consonant with this way of understanding the world this music can seem fractured, dissonant, fearful, and terrifying, even in it's moments of quiet beauty. It's certainly a symbol system that conjures a worldview, and "The Fall Of Us All" is probably the apotheosis of Tibbetts' development of his expression to date (the more recent and also magnificent "A Man About A Horse" works similar ground in a different way - a little more intensely focused with a less broad canvas). There's astonishing texture and atmosphere in this recording. It envelops you and probes at you from varying directions and at different velocities, with shapes appearing and dissolving in the mist, only to gather for moments of accumulating focus and power, occasionally prolonged almost to the breaking point (a technique especially prominent on Tibbetts' previous "Exploded View"). The compositions are masterfully structured in their lack of conventional structure. How many musicians can forge a musical identity by embracing complexity and ambiguity, and probing so incisively the subjective objectivity of the world, with its extremes and apparent contradictions? For all that, this is an affirming journey, both for its astonishing revelatory power and it's breadth of expression. Tibbetts is another of those American masters, quietly working his amazingly fertile ground away from the masses who will never journey with understanding to a land of this complexity that asks, and rewards, so much.

This record is the best of Steve's work, Bar none. All of his discs are brilliant (...well "Northern Song" is a little boring...), but this record amalgamates all of his previous work into the ultimate synthesis. Raging feedback, surging percussion, delicate kalimba, plaintive vocals, it's ALL here. Get this record!!

This CD was my introduction to Tibbetts, and I was hooked instantly. It is hard to describe, except to say it is intense, a wild ride through the realms of..... the bardo... the best word that comes to mind (a Tibetan term for the in-between ungrounded space). The guitars (acoustic and electric) and layered percussions make a tide of sound that rises and falls and blends, twists and opens to reveal an incredible range of emotion, and sheer technical ability! Tibbetts is a great guitarist and composer. Marc Anderson, his percussive collaborator, is unbelievable.

All the Tibbett's/Anderson recordings I've heard are intense. Some of the earlier acoustic based recordings are more subtle soundscapes, Safe Journey and Exploded View have this wildly swinging electrotantric rawness, and the latest Man About A Horse is perhaps more balanced and accessible. This CD is the most extreme and powerful. I love them all, as enjoyable background music (late at night) or when given close attention.

I repeat, this is heavy stuff. And makes me think it would be what Hendrix would play if he was alive and not on drugs (ie more control). What makes Tibbetts distinct is the union of Central Asian and American culture (and the cultures he joins are not the mainstreams in either case). The effect is that these compositions transcend culture and time. They speak to something universal (hence, the title...)

The music involves polyrhythmic percussions (sounds like a whole gang of master drummers), with layers of guitar weaving and pulsing above. (While the overall effect is intense he uses modulation and dynamics to great effect.) Tibbetts plays both acoustic and electric guitars in a variety of ways; finger plucked, looped and distorted with generous and creative use of feedback. The effect is mind bending, and deeply satisfying with repeated listenings.

This is clearly the work of genius, symphonic compositions, but of unusual realms - as I listen, images like of a convention of owls, a den of rattle snakes saying goodnight for the winter, a conversation of whales, a moonrise, the tectonic shift of continents, and the swaying of a bed of seaweeds in a swelling sea all come to mind - and that's just in one tune! ("Roam and Spy") - Highly recommended.

In a perfect marriage of form and content,Tibbets and long time collaborator Marc Anderson really shine on this disc of otherworld music.
Tibetan punk rock / Cambodian bluegrass/ Brazilian chanting / African insect folk dance tunes /symphonies of rhythm... it is all here.... and more.
Buy...Enjoy.

I was listening to this Record quite often several Years ago, it was my "explore the possible Musics" Phase. This Record set the new Standards at me, i saw how beatiful and wonderfull it can get, i always avoid to make statements of "Perfection". But, sure This Record is very close to Perfection.
Like the other Reviewer, i categorize this record as a Musical
Experience of highest order.
I remember it was 4 o'clock in the morning, it was as if i left the World behind with this wonderfull Music, my foots were cut off the ground.

It's difficult to describe the style of Tibbett's music because it's absolutely unique. No one makes music of a similar style. No one. And if that were all there were to this stuff it might merit some attention - but this music is so much more.

It's probably fair to say that Tibbett's music is not for the timid. This is enormously intense music of great power as well as great subtlety. The dynamic range is enormous, with passages of quiet probing yielding to passages of ferocious attacks of percussion and distorted guitar. There's a vision and a symbol here of life's intense complexity and dynamic range, and the listener whose brain also works these channels of thought and emotion is likely to experience a powerful confirmation of their sense of life. For those not consonant with this way of understanding the world this music can seem fractured, dissonant, fearful, and terrifying, even in it's moments of quiet beauty. It's certainly a symbol system that conjures a worldview, and "The Fall Of Us All" is probably the apotheosis of Tibbett's development of his expression to date (the more recent and also magnificent "A Man About A Horse" works similar ground in a different way - a little more intensely focused with a less broad canvas). There's astonishing texture and atmosphere in this recording. It envelops you and probes at you from varying directions and at different velocities, with shapes appearing and dissolving in the mist, only to gather for moments of accumulating focus and power, occasionally prolonged almost to the breaking point (a technique especially prominent on Tibbett's previous "Exploded View"). The compositions are masterfully structured in their lack of conventional structure. How many musicians can forge a musical identity by embracing complexity and ambiguity, and probing so incisively the subjective objectivity of the world, with its extremes and apparent contradictions? For all that, this is an affirming journey, both for its astonishing revelatory power and it's breadth of expression. Tibbetts is another of those American masters, quietly working his amazingly fertile ground away from the masses who will never journey with understanding to a land of this complexity that asks, and rewards, so much.

The Fall of Us All is a stunning recording, a whirling devilish dervish of a disk that alternatively assaults and seduces listeners with electric and acoustic energy. This is the best Steve Tibbetts recording ever, combining the near-manic electric energy of Yr and Exploded View with the acoustic delicacy of Northern Song and Big Map Idea into a whole that transcends its many fine parts. What is most impressive about this music is the way it blends so many influences together into an integrated whole. Tibbetts and his cohort, including long-time collaborator Marc Anderson on percussion; Claudia Schmidt and Rhea Valentine, who provides vocalese; Marcus Wise, tabla; Jim Anton and Eric Andersen, bass; and Mike Olson, synthesizers, seem to really be involved in the making of music--not the packaging of music, or the selling of music, but of the real making of music in the most fundamental, elemental sense. Forget that prepackaged world music fusion stuff--Steve Tibbetts's music is true world music, true music, and its well-recorded energy can blow you right away.

Listening to The Fall of Us All makes me remember why it was that I ever got interested in kilowatt/killerwoofer audio equipment in the first place--it was to hear real music, really loud and really clean. Ecstasy!