Search - San Agustin :: Expanding Sea

Improvised music is an acquired taste...

angry reactionary | outer space | 12/30/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"like rockhound's mama.



this release ain't a rock record and nobody claims to be a songwriter on it. somebody who is expecting it to be neat and clean and orchestrated is going to be disappointed. this record does fall within the continuum of modern free-improvised minimalism and texturalism, and in that context it's a very nice record. rockhound should stick to his alanis morrisette and creed records - don't leave your house, man, it's a scary world out there!"

Georgia realism

Ali Mahjouri | Washington, D.C. United States | 01/19/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"three amazing musicians who have released three amazing cds in this beautifully assembled box set. worth checking out if you like unpredictability in music using standard rock intstruments. moments of careful buildup, stepback, further progression, more stepback, and eventual release that gives you enough satisfaction to get the juices in your heart flowing but not too much that the feeling becomes moot. this is a recording from their european tour with the presocratics (another tableoftheelements band). and my favorite to date. i swear every bit of beauty on this album is pure coming from three beautiful blokes."

2 years later...

Ali Mahjouri | Philadelphia, PA, USA | 09/12/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"the record still carries a weight that is hard to pass up. it took me a while to think of an appropriate response to rockhound of new york...Listen, this is not for everyone, and it most certainly may fall short if your expectations are for the predictable alterna-rock of the day or forms of sound that are not really doing anything short of takign us where we have already been...we've all been there and if i was still there, I may not like this box set. These days, however, I am searching for the art in music... I had the privilege/and am forever spoiled by playing in my first band with David Daniell (one of 3 in San Agustin) and actually became bitten by the bug of playing music by Andrew Burnes (the other one of 3 in San Agustin)....



Point is this - there is a tremendous attention to detail at work here - that has more to do with a comprehensive momentary awareness and heightened ability to use the material of the instruments to best express the matter of the moment. This is an incredibly powerful work that may upset or illuminate. While there are some moments that shine less bright than others, the overall places we are taken far surpass the predictable la-di-da of other more current and "rocking" bands. this is an extremely intelligent compendium that may be a new form of Musique Concret...music which is nothing more than what it is - stripped of the BS preaching messages of the sad-for-life indie rockers or the single sexually depraved-tattoo slinging shaved head tough boy rockers (with their sensitive side, of course) of the day. David Daniell is an artist, first and foremost and the guitar is his medium....What he has expressed here is nothing more than what it is...which may be ugly. to others may be sad. to others beautiful. open your ears, and you may find a world beyond your own imaginations opening up. The expanding sea is just that -an infinite fluid that follows the currents of nature, harnesses that energy inherent, and works quite hard to expand to another realm reminding us of the essence that life is real, that there exists an undpredictability to the movement and fluctuations in the intricate web that is this world...the sea is the space in between and an essential structural component of life."