ECM Records, released October 1987
8/10
The late ‘80s was a great period for avant-garde guitar playing with the likes of Vernon Reid, Reeves Gabrels, Adrian Belew, Arto Lindsay, Fred Frith, Dave Fiuczynski, Stevie Salas, Sonny Sharrock, Skip McDonald, Robert Quine, Steve Vai and Bill Frisell laying down some seriously mind-bending tones and textures.
Cloud About Mercury, David Torn’s second ECM solo album, definitely put him into the same league. Though just as influential as many of the aforementioned guitarists, he has never really gained as much of a public profile despite occasional solo albums and stellar sideman work with the likes of David Bowie and David Sylvian.
My dad used to get sent a lot of music for his work and I vaguely remember him passing Cloud About Mercury onto me, knowing I was a big fan of early-’80s King Crimson.
My muso mates and I quickly grew to like the album’s perverse musical concepts and silly song titles. With a superstar avant-rock rhythm section of Bill Bruford and Tony Levin on board, it came on a bit like the follow-up to Crimson’s Three Of A Perfect Pair, but also offered a strikingly original take on jazz/rock.
I recall a contemporary review of Cloud About Mercury in Q magazine which said something like: ‘Torn luxuriates in the silence for a bit…and then goes KRAOOOOOOW!’ But in its louder moments, CAM is definitely one to annoy the neighbours. Torn’s Trans-Trem guitar enables him to create some very novel effects and original lines, with micro-tones and Middle Eastern flavours, and you can really get lost in his ambient loops.
CAM is also a very uncharacteristic ECM album, being much more in-your-face and rockist in its mixing and playing than most of the label’s output. In fact, it’s not really fair to judge it as a ‘jazz’ album at all.
But sometimes Torn seems much happier playing solo or in duet with Isham; his superb rhythm section is underused, and the tunes rely too heavily on one-chord improvisations. Consequently Bruford and Levin sound somewhat muted and can’t quite bring the sort of forward-motion dynamics so crucial to jazz/rock.
Torn toured extensively to promote CAM (but presumably not London or I surely would have been there…) with ex-Japan bass player Mick Karn replacing the unavailable Tony Levin. An excellent decision, both musically and commercially.
The band sounded fantastic and the tunes really came to life. Torn and Isham then accompanied David Sylvian on the ‘In Praise Of Shamen’ world tour which I caught at the Hammersmith Odeon in 1988.
Two quick questions to end, prompted by a discussion with my brother about Torn the other day: why isn’t there any music like this around these days? Or is there?
movingtheriver.com 
Just acquired Torn/Karn/Bozio “Polytown” (1994). Certainly shows the same variety and restlessness that powers CAM (which, like you, I like very much indeed).
Other artists? Will have to take that question on notice, though Vernon Reid’s solo albums are damn fine.
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Cheers for that. Good call on Reid – I really enjoyed his first solo album (and of course was a huge Living Colour fan), was it called ‘Mistaken Identity’? But I’ve struggled a bit with his stuff since then. It might be something to do with his guitar tone these days. I used to have ‘Polytown’, it has some fantastic moments. I particularly remember a track called, I think, ‘This Is The Abduction Scene’, one of the great song titles of the ’90s! Maybe Mark Isham is the key to ‘Cloud About Mercury’ For me, he gives that kind of music a much-needed ‘human’ quality and some breathing space when it all gets a bit stodgy. I generally find it very hard to listen to all that kind of Bozzio/Levin/Bruford/Steve Stevens jam-based stuff for more than a few minutes!
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Your comment about CAM’s “rock” mix is kind of funny because if Torn had had his way it would have sounded more aggressive than it does. ECM label head Manfred Eicher did the final mix and made it sound much less “in your face” and more ECM-like than Torn had wanted.
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Interesting. It certainly doesn’t sound like anything else on the label. And, surprisingly, it seems Manfred is quite fond of it too – he’s just included it in his ‘ECM Touchstones’ anniversary series.
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