Conveniens: Conveniens

An eccentric Chicago duo, Conveniens has assembled an odd little CD that tends to eschew any number of conventions. Sounding a bit raw at the start the music grows progressively more engaged as the tracks pile up. At the beginning the keyboards more or less just sit on top of the drums, almost as if coming from the next room over. But as the pieces gradually coalesce, some fairly intricate and still eccentric structures end up very differently than the frankness of the opening pieces.

This progress is steady from tracks one through eight. Something stranger still happens on track nine. " Blink" is comprised of real or fake interviews, layered atop one another and given a rather cursory treatment that consists pretty much of little more than some overtly added reverb. While the hope is that this might turn into something, or better still something else, over the course of 7 minutes and 41 seconds, it firmly, emphatically does not. Odd choice to say the least.

The other choices in instrumental voicing are refreshingly and uniformly atypical, even at times willing to become modestly annoying. Unwilling to be readily categorized, Conveniens sounds for all the world like a few guys literally working it out as they go along and finally getting someplace. There's a casualness that's disarming and it invites you to listen more than once, because once isn't enough in this case. Which is what's so curious about this CD. If you like the kind of work that remains odd and even at times deliberately indifferent, Conveniens is for you.

Track Listing
1) Rain Kite
2) Know it Ain't
3) Morning Lobotomy
4) Barney Klark
5) Regular Grind
6) Druhm Rum
7) Procession of Bone
8) Afrisha'nki
9) Blink

Added: November 21st 2006
Reviewer: Kerry Leimer
Score:
Related Link: More Information
Hits: 2593
Language: english

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