Flying Low

Carla Kihlstedt and Shahzad Ismaily - Flying Low (2004) self-released

1. Einsamall
2. Shutters
3. Long Walk Home
4. Dishes in a Red Dress
5. Farrage
6. Apology Knot
7. Flying Low
8. Crone
9. Stitch
10. Carriage
11. Muir Waltz
12. Long Walk Home, II
13. From Here, It Is Quiet
14. Dolmen
15. Dish in a Red Dress, II
16. Flock
17. Andast

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Carla Kihlstedt and Shahzad Ismaily, when filled out with Marika Hughes, make up the delightful 2 Foot Yard. This album however, sounds nothing like that band. If anything it most resembles Kihlstedt’s Tin Hat Trio (now just simply Tin Hat,) but that’s still quite a stretch. Kihlstedt is probably best known for her role in the art rock performance group Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, as their resident violinist. Shahzad Ismaily is most active with the conspiracy loving Secret Chiefs 3. What these two multi-instrumentalists have recorded is one mixed bag:

Flying Low was written for Jo Kreiter and Flyaway Productions’ 2001 premiere of “Maybe Grief is a Good Bird Flying Low”— a contemporary dance piece about the ways in which women deal with grief.

In other words, Flying Low is the soundtrack to a modern dance piece. The result isn’t quite cinematic, that’s much too grandiose a term, but it’s definitely visual. The music has enough space incorporated within it to let motion & movement breathe, to augment it if you will. Since the music was written to aid a visual element, it doesn’t easily leave an impression. So it’s easy to dismiss Flying Low as having very little depth to it, which is a huge mistake. The album has plenty of ambient moments, and simplistic instrumentation, but giving it your undivided attention it will expose a rich complexity in timbre and a wide array in exotic tones. Not only are both musicians multi-instrumentalists, but the instruments they use are one of a kind. I’m not kidding. Kihlstedt uses a homemade “trumpet violin,” which she uses in many of her projects, Tin Hat & SGM included. A violin is married with the horn of a trumpet, which sounds like the ghost of a violin emanating from a giant gramophone. Other, less unique instruments utilized are Chinese banjo (which sounds exactly like you’d think), zither, and bass harmonica (think harmonica, but larger than a brick). Flying Low has plenty of ambient moments, soundscapes, and at times builds up to resemble French jazz. Yet it never remains on any element long enough to be defined by it. There is practically never a break, as it flows from one track to the next, enforcing the album’s fluidity, and reminding you that it is in fact a soundtrack.

The entire recording was produced and engineered by SGM member, and all around audio guru, Dan Rathbun, at his Polymorph Recording Studio. To say the production (both in terms of audio & packaging) is “top notch,” would be an understatement. The album comes in a hand folded, mucus color card stock, with graphics silk screened by Kilhstedt herself. The ink is a glittery magenta, which is infinitely more elegant than it sounds. Included with the album is an actual bird feather. When I purchased this many years ago, it was described as “very limited” in quantity. While the packaging is strictly DIY, the CDs themselves are legitimately printed, so I’d guess the album is limited to a couple or few hundred copies.