Poet Philippe Costaglioli, composer
Scott Miller, and the four musicians of
Zeitgeist have joined forces on Shape Shifting, a mysterious and murky collaboration that disturbs more than it appeals, and baffles more than it moves. Costaglioli's theatrical recitation of his dark, confessional poetry -- read directly in English, French, and Catalan, or incoherently scattered in electronically altered phonetic fragments -- is accompanied by repetitive patterns, washes of clusters, random pointillistic gestures, pugnacious percussive textures, and chaotic improvisations that defy simple analysis in their density.
Miller's score -- or
Zeitgeist's extrapolation of it -- is overloaded with tricks that have been stock-in-trade since the 1960s, and handled with more sensitivity and craft by many other composers. For music composed in 2005, this album seems nostalgic for a bygone era, but utterly lacks the urgency, power, and originality that characterizes the best of the avant-garde. Because of its pretensions to seriousness, Shape Shifting may appeal most strongly to adventurous adolescents who might sympathize with Costaglioli's self-absorbed ruminations. But other listeners may cringe at his preening tone and feel somewhat annoyed by the lifelessness and clumsiness of
Miller's and
Zeitgeist's dismally imitative music.