Anamnestic Tincture
(Roaratorio - ROAR15) LP $17.25 (Out-of-stock)
The performances on this live album by virtuoso musical carpenter Paul Metzger were culled from many hours of concert recordings. Side one, the public debut of his modified banjo, was recorded in 2002 at a church-turned-underground art space in Minneapolis. One of his most memorable compositions, "After Milo," later turned up as an untitled improvisation on his CD for the Chairkickers label. Jumping ahead six years (and several more banjo alterations later) to side two, the glittering "Orans" gets a workout at a memorial show for the artist Matt Zaun. As an acknowledgment of the occasion, Metzger also gives a one-time-only performance -- "Dark Green Water" -- on another of his mutant instruments: an acoustic guitar with the body drilled out to accommodate a cymbal set into its face, and ten assorted strings of varying lengths laid over the top, giving it a particularly metallic and dissonant sound. Limited edition of 425 copies, with an original vintage snapshot mounted on each cover. TEDIUM HOUSE BEST OF 2009
Canticle of Ignat
(Archive - ARCHIVE46) CD $13.00 (Out-of-stock)
One track played on modified acoustic guitar and one track played on modified banjo, recorded in 2007 at BigJar in Philadelphia. Metzger offers an amazing mix of Indian ragas crossed with a junk yard band feel, highly evolved and unique. Slightly oversized sleeve silkscreened (by Alan Sherry of Siwa) and die-cut with an insert printed on vellum, hand-glued and assembled. Edition of 500 copies.
BEN CHASNY / CHRIS CORSANO / PAUL METZGER
Chris Corsano & Ben Chasny / Paul Metzger
(Roaratorio) Used Split LP $15.00
“On guitar modified with music box innards and an accompanying tambura, Metzger dives deep into the raga heart of a moonlit day and returns with the jewels. On the flip, Corsano’s drums and Chasny’s guitar chatter and clatter with jittery hyper-articulation, worrying the meat off the bone in short sharp strokes.” Silkscreened poplar wood covers. Edition of 766
Deliverance
(Locust - 013) CD $12.00
A real time performance on overhauled 21-string banjo of deeply satisfying, impulsive outer cosmos ragadelia that is unfiltered aural transcendence, Metzger's hypnotic raga epic is both slow burning meditation and urgent mind / body duel.
Gedanken Splitter
(Roaratorio - ROAR14) LP $12.00 (Out-of-stock)
Paul Metzger’s modified banjo is tricked out with additional sympathetic raga strings, although Gedanken Splitter is informed by more than Eastern drone music alone. Recorded in the same period as Deliverance (Locust Music 2007), this is more jagged and aggressive; Metzger winds improvisations around thornier threads than on his previous releases, and moves even further away from anything resembling typical banjo fare. Mesmerizing and singular. TEDIUM HOUSE BEST OF 2008.
Three Improvisations on Modified Banjo and Guitar
(Chairkicker's Music - CKM015) CD $12.00
Metzger may wrench unique and varied sounds and melodies from the banjo, but an irreverent approach and fluid dexterity are also in evidence via seamless hybrids of North Indian and Asian influences, jazz and folk. Recorded within the acoustically resonant former church Sacred Heart Studio in Duluth, his three long improvisations venture miles beyond what one normally expects from the banjo.