Rinde Eckert/Art Labriola/Jay Nicholas/David Rothenberg
Should Sound Loose
(Terra Nova Music)
Should Sound Loose is a mad science
experiment by mad scientists Rinde Eckert, Art Labriola, Jay Nicholas, and Beacon clarinetist/composer David Rothenberg. The experiment? It’s on you, the listener, pushing your limits with electronic tinkering, jazz-tinged improvisation, and found-sound disruption. The 19-track album finds your brain’s factory reset button on “Fading Frenzy,” a, well, frenzied car crash of found sounds, samples, and electronic fiddling akin to frantically tuning through a staticky radio. This track and more are glued together with rounded basslines from Nicholas. Maybe they’re Martian scientists? Tracks like “Night Noises by the Forest’s Edge” sound like an incoming transmission from an alien spaceship into which you have been abducted, probing your ears with eerie warbling. You’re put under with “Amnesiascope” with a memory-wiping bass clarinet monologue from Rothenberg, waking up to tracks like “Ice Cave Laboratory,” where glassy icicles of piano and electronics from Art Labriola examine you further. Pensive clarinet on the title track, more otherworldly sounds on “Mycolect,” and daybreaking harmonies on “From Every Angle” define the second half, which has Eckert on percussion and—as is emblematic of the spirit of the album—”toys.”
This article appears in April 2025.
