Ars Vivende

They Say...

Review by François Couture, All Music Guide

Much better is The Abstractions' follow-up to Sonic Conspiracy: more daring, more complex, more puzzling in every way. The group remains in a state of flux throughout the 22 tracks. The nucleus consists of guitarist /singer Ernesto Diaz-Infante, saxophonist Rent Romus, violinist Bob Marsh, singer/moaner/screamer Jesse Quattro, and drummer Phillip Everett replacing original member Scott R. Looney. But all these musicians are not involved in every piece, and there's plenty of extras appearing, such as singer Diana Emerson interlocking her voice with Quattro's in seven cuts, Sandor Finta doing the same in six more, along with guitarist Alwyn Quebido contributing to eight of them. Diaz-Infante, professional chameleon man, draws from all of his strings on Ars Vivende, providing field recordings, odd noises (from cassettes and records), playing guitars and violin, and singing in his undecipherable murmur. But where his eponymous solo album for Pax Recordings from a few months earlier drifted into a certain sedated post-psychedelic/outsider mood, Ars Vivende is kept very much alive by Everett (an inventive banger), Romus' scorching lines, and Quattro's many calls to arms. The music of The Abstractions, despite its level of, hem, abstraction, irradiates a strong sense of urgency. Titles like "Amerika Not Beautiful," "A Furiously Fatal Future," and "After the WAR" can only refer to the United States' war against Iraq (or "attack on Iraq," depending on which side of the fence you choose to stand). Where American experimental rock groups from the same period, like Sunburned Hand of the Man, Jackie-O Motherfucker, and No-Neck Blues Band, stretch out into long improvised jams, The Abstractions keep things short, focused, and thus all the more disturbingly brutal without having to exaggerate the level of decibels. And Ars Vivende takes their art much further than before.