ISSUE Project Room : an open and versatile environment in which established and emerging artists conduct, exhibit and perform new and site-specific work

It seems statistically improbable that we would have two entirely unrelated artists playing modified banjos (extended banjos? prepared banjos?) in the space of a few weeks, but that's how we roll. The night before Uncle Woody Sullender broke out his electro-acoustic transducer banjo, Paul Metzger brought his own techniques to the floor. Metzger plays purely acoustic, but the spirit is so close to Sullender's that they seem like a perfect pair; instead of electro-acoustic drones and resonances, Metzger has added a dozen and a half strings to his instrument. Some of these strings are added to the neck of the banjo, which seems to be set up somewhat like a twelve-string guitar; others run from the top of the banjo's drum head to the bridge, and these resonate sympathetically with his playing. The bridge also seems to be raised, as Metzger bows the instrument at times.

It is impossible to discuss Paul Metzger's music without mentioning the seeming influence of Indian raga, from the modal harmonies and gliding inflections to the way the rhythm often clips along at a steady pulse without fitting into small accented phrases. Metzger's banjo doesn't ring quite like a sitar, though--it packs the punch of something like the Afghan rubab, that fretted plucked-string instrument where the whole set of sympathetic strings vibrates at once against the same membrane as the melody strings.

But comparisons are somewhat inconsequential to Metzger's music. He has his own well-wrought world, and the most immediately apparent aspect to his music is the clarity with which he conveys it. His long, partially improvised performance "The Uses of Infinity" (out soon on Locust Music) bears some resemblance to La Monte Young's ongoing work "The Well-Tuned Piano" in that it moves among harmonic areas, contrasting clouds of sound with moments of near-stasis. Moreover, it is an immensely physical performance, as emotionally immediate as it is structured in a larger sense.

Below is the last third of the performance, which expands to roughly 20 minutes on the album.