Music Consumer Guide by Kyle Gann

Larry Polansky: The Theory of Impossible Melody (Artifact) This first CD is enough to prove Polansky one of our major post-'70s experimentalists. B'rey'sheet (In the beginning . . .) with Jody Diamond chanting over an electronic bleep forest, sounds generically chaotic at first, but keep listening. Polansky's logic, like James Tenney's gels elegantly by piece's end. The computer sometimes works out counterpoint, and filtering is the prevailing paradigm; as information gets added and taken away, beastly textures dissolve into lucidity. The four tempo canons are conceptual yet pretty, especially the last's surreal alternation of Anthony Braxton's rippling sax and sampled frog croaks. Aside from Psaltery, a glorious halo of psaltery harmonics, this is gritty stuff, but it satisfies because Polansky sticks with his material until his point's made. He rejects the '80s, and with them the short attentions span. A

Typed by Cheryl Vega 5-18-95