[Moshe]

http://www.theherald.co.uk/misc/print.php?artid=1449454

The roll of a lifetime


In a back-street venue off Edinburgh's Cowgate, drummer Chris Corsano is keeping busy all over his kit as part of Hockyfrilla Trio. Wearing an "I Believe In Resonance FM" T-shirt in homage to the left-field station, the impossibly young-looking Corsano provides ballast and momentum to an improvised set involving old record players, school-assembly recorders and all manner of electronic kit that's combined to create a set of primitive electronic mayhem.
The two women who normally make up Hockyfrilla are part of a burgeoning Edinburgh noise scene. For the past year or so, American expat Corsano has been increasingly active in such company, whether playing solo with assorted customised tube constructions to accompany his rolling-thunder drum sound, or with fellow travellers such as Sunburned Hand of the Man, and, in Stirling, as part of Sonic Youth guitarist Thurston Moore's Dream/Aktion Unit.
Since taking up residence in Edinburgh a year ago, Corsano has also taken part in last year's Resonant Spaces project at Hamilton Mausoleum, and, at All Tomorrows Parties' Nightmare Before Xmas festival, with long-term collaborator sax player Paul Flaherty.
This Friday, however, late-night TV viewers will be able to see Corsano on the barometer of cultural relativism that is Later With Jools Holland, when he occupies the drum stool for no less a personage than Bjork. He's been doing so on a world tour to accompany the release of the pint-sized Icelandic whirlwind's latest album, Volta, on which Corsano is part of a stellar line-up.
This is no sell-out to commercial forces, however, even if it did mean having to turn down the Contemporary Music Network's recent Free Noise tour with saxophonist Evan Parker and members of the current generation of improvisers. Given Bjork's own libertine spirit, born of a background in punk and more left-field music, it's a logical move in which everyone's integrity remains intact.
"She knows a lot of different music," a jet-lagged Corsano says in an Edinburgh hostelry the day before the Hockyfrilla show. "She used to be in punk bands, and I don't think she ever stopped listening to smaller weirdo things just because she got popular. It doesn't mean her tastes have changed."
When her record label, One Little Indian, contacted him with a view to playing on Volta, Corsano wasn't sure how it would work out, but was happy with the experience. "She's really easy to work with. I've not done a lot of stuff like that before, and when I have, sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't. I don't know exactly what it comes down to."
Corsano was then offered the tour and his live appearances with Bjork have taken in the Coachella festival in California, a three-night stint in New York and further headlining dates across the globe including at Glastonbury and, in Inveraray, at this autumn's new Connect festival.
"The Bjork thing," as Corsano warmly calls it, "is different from everything else I do, because it's not completely improvised. There are some bits that are improvised, but they're parts of songs, so I really notice the difference."
Between Bjork dates, Corsano has a full diary of collaborations and solo outings such as the Hockyfrilla gig. By the time you read this, he'll have played two jazz festivals in Portugal with Evan Parker and former Pointy Birds and B-Shops for the Poor bassist, John Edwards, and slipped in a London trip to record the Jools Holland programme before returning to Portugal for a gallery show with guitarist Manuel Mota.
This week, Corsano plays in Scotland no less than three times - with vocalist Carla Bozulich and Mick Flower and in a solo set at Glasgow's Optimo club. He's not one for resting on musicianly laurels, despite the profile of his Bjork associations.
It's in these small shows that he thrives, confounding any preconceived notions of how a solo drummer, let alone drum solos, might work in sets that are sometimes riotous, at others more meditational. "I guess if I treated what I was doing like a job," he says, "it might be different, but I've played so many shows over the past three years with so many different people that if I'm not doing it I just get restless. From show to show, who you're playing with changes everything, but my approach to it is the same. It's not like I have to remember to make the right change at the right time. It's more about staying focussed on who I'm playing with. I think it hits a different area of my brain than I've been using for what I'm doing with Bjork, and that's kind of good to get back to."
Scheduling his own shows, though, is proving increasingly difficult, and this week's appearances may be the last we'll see of Corsano on small stages for a while. "I'm learning that the off-months don't really mean off-months," he says, "because if something like Jools Holland comes up, it can throw a monkey-wrench into my own things. My girlfriend's bearing the brunt of this, because we were going to have a couple of holiday days in Portugal, but now I have to fly to London. It's cool, but I don't want that to keep happening, so maybe in the off-months I'll just concentrate on recording."
Corsano moved to the UK three years ago with his girlfriend, Aby, a marine biologist who took up a research post in Manchester before accepting a similar job in Edinburgh in September last year. By that stage, Corsano had already been making his presence felt for the best part of a decade after falling in love with hard-core punk while growing up near Northampton, Massachusetts (home, incidentally, of Sonic Youth's Moore and Kim Gordon). Jazz was the first music to register with Corsano, via his father's old records, and he considered taking up the upright bass. Aged 13, however, he followed in his elder brother's footsteps and started playing drums instead.
Corsano spent years working in record shops, and even lived in one; bands would perform in his living room. "I was a record nerd," he says, "and the more you go into everything from Boredoms to Balinese Gamelan music, it all rubs off, and you try to find where you fit."

Corsano, though, fits pretty much everywhere, as his solo discs, The Young Cricketer and Blood Pressure demonstrate as much as his role in Bjork's live band. Beyond his current commitments, Corsano will undoubtedly continue a path that's as instinctive as the music he's already produced. "Smaller is better," he says of his shows this week. "It's important to make those connections."
Chris Corsano plays with Carla Bozulich, Henry's Cellar Bar, Edinburgh, on Friday, and with Mick Flower - supporting Faust - at The Bongo Club, Edinburgh, on Saturday. He is at Optimo, Glasgow, on Sunday. He appears with Bjork on Later With Jools Holland on Friday, and at the Connect Festival, Inveraray, on September 2. For information, visit www.myspace.com/chriscorsano and www.yod/ihatedmusic.

[sonicl]

There's an interview with him in the current issue of Plan B. I'll try to remember to scan and post it this evening.

[whorefrost]

excellent read, cheers. incidentally, corsano actually lives a couple of minutes away from my pal. we are conspiring to kidnap him and force him to jam with us.

[sonicl]

You probably wouldn't have to force him, he seems to enjoy playing percussion so much that he'll jam with anyone. Which is really nice to see.

[whorefrost]

yeah, we were waiting on a bus from glasgow to minehead with him in the wee hours once... almost gave him our CD-R but had the absurd notion that we should save it and try and give it to Byron Coley... maybe get it licked by the tongue, dig?

[sonicl]

Plan B interview

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[sonicl]

Corsano will be on "Later with Jools Holland" this evening (Friday 8 June) as part of Bjork's band.