By: Ross Edwards
Rating: 8/11

Eric John Eigner’s music is an aural circus, rambling and self-satisfied, working magic as an audience drifts in and out, catching little bits and pieces of moods and scenery. The songs feature various instruments, usually with Eigner on drums, but there must be others where he provides whistle, or some strange atmospheric sound effect. These songs have a real natural flow to them, full of the tonal, rhythmic, and harmonic conflict equivalent to an emotional breakdown and following recovery.

“Solo Drums” is percussive ramblings formed into frenetic, short vignettes that realize vivid moods. The lazy bike horn on “Cockatoo” rides through the aviary of flute, trombone, and some stringed instrument, while the whole thing shuffles along like a loping drunken clown. A fog of emotions is born, something like actors on a misty stage portraying trembling insincerity and a feisty sense of sorrowful goofery. 

“Tousled Heads” swings into motion with a trombone and shiny drum interaction, the screeching coherency of a smattering of car accidents. Improvised phrasing unites the two instruments and separates them as they jabber across their lines and end quizzically. It seems that these musicians could continue on for days or their entire lives; the composition is in the approach, and not in the forethought. 

Eigner’s is not a world of drumbeats and songforms, melodies and choruses, or solos or consistency, although all of these may certainly be found. He deals more with vague scenes, like the listener has stumbled in late to some foreign play and is left to find out what the hell is going on, or to enjoy the nonsense of it.