Alexander Noice makes music that is full of complexity yet also full of mirth. On his 2019 album NOICE (also the name of the ensemble he gathered for that record), his guitar work joined forces with alto saxophone, bass, drums (both acoustic and programmed) and the twin vocals of Karina Kallas and Argenta Walther as they worked their way through Noice’s knotty but endlessly catchy compositions. In my review of that album, I enthused that the record “contains an almost inhuman amount of energy and dexterity”. Seven years later, Noice is back with a lot of the same characteristics, adding a few more along the way.
On Perpetually and Forever, Noice handles the lion’s share of the instrumentation, credited with guitar, piano, synths, vocals, and programming, with saxophones, flute, and bass clarinet added to a few of the tracks. While the somewhat “one-person band” status of the record may lead other artists to adopt a more minimalist approach, Noice doubles down on layers of sound and interlocking melodies, resulting in songs that blend jazz, improvisation, and tightly wound compositional lines, with modern technology washing over the 11 tracks.
Noice’s Bandcamp page notes that the record “reflects on the buoyant optimism of late-1950s and early 1960s America through the fractured lens of our contemporary moment”. Certainly, the opening track reflects this both in the frenetic, complex positivity of the music, not to mention its title: “Love Makes the World Go Round”, all sputtering synth melodies, galloping drum programs, and Gavin Templeton’s alto saxophone, as the title is sung off and on throughout.
However, that positivity seems undercut by the idiosyncrasies and melodic overload of “Third Corso”, a techno-friendly fusillade of rave-like brilliance. Melodic lines come and go, overlapping each other in a breathless, seemingly unstoppable manner. When Noice occasionally stops to catch his breath, the result is sublime, regal synth-dominant set pieces like “Frank Defends Himself”, which is as vibrant as the rest of the album, and contains a bit of restrained grace before David Binney’s squealing alto saxophone crashes the party. The rest of the instruments follow suit.
Some tracks are the result of unique and productive gestation periods, such as the mind-blowing “Ayler in Loghaven”, composed while Noice was attending the Loghaven Artist Residency in Knoxville, Tennessee. “This one came together really fast and was super fun to work on,” Noice explained on the Loghaven Instagram page. “It channels an energy I had wanted to explore for a while, combining super aggressive electronic, almost hip-hop-inspired production in the vein of Death Grips or the Knife.”
Joe Santa Maria’s tenor saxophone cuts through the chaos with bright blasts in the vein of the track’s namesake, the late free jazz saxophonist Albert Ayler. The performance is a perfect example of one of Noice’s most impressive qualities—the ability to fuse the atonal skronk of experimental jazz with larger-than-life synth explosions. Santa Maria, meanwhile, does impressive work on “Sinking the Santa Maria”, improvising on saxophone, flute, and bass clarinet, fusing them into Noice’s deeply imaginative multi-instrumental excursions.
Perpetually and Forever closes with a relatively meditative piece, dialing down (somewhat) the gleefully overstuffed instrumentation with “Body Is Reality”, as processed piano notes and chords create a puzzle of a composition that offers moments of clarity, a sort of musical cool-down period. Again, it’s all relative. Alexander Noice’s compositions and performances always seem to occupy curious spaces of musical neurosis. Like that of the similarly gifted Robert Fripp, Noice’s music offers a complex array of musical ideas combined with a beating human heart. Perpetually and Forever is a wild ride, and one that has something for every adventurous listener.