Frank Pahl is an internationally recognized artist who specializes in the design, construction, and operation of musical instruments that play themselves. Some of his work suggests close kinship with the spirits of John Cage, Harry Partch, and Henry Brant. A native of Trenton, Michigan, he grew up in the Downriver region south of Detroit. It is intriguing to note that his father worked for Wyandotte Toys, which according to Frank was for many years the largest tin toy manufacturer in the United States. While a significant number of toy instruments have found their way into Frank's workshop over the years, the toy instrument ensemble known as Little Bang Theory and their album Elementary have taken the art and science of toy instrumentation to new levels of creative achievement. Elementary is an exercise in The Marvelous as defined by André Breton in The First Surrealist Manifesto. Sounds are generated by a veritable heap of devices including hand bells, a bass melodica, a cheap Casio keyboard, toy pianos (one of which has been identified as a Little Tikes keyboard), harmonica, kazoo, and various unusual string or percussion instruments. In collaboration with Terri Sarris, Doug Shimmin, and (on Tumbleweed) Claudette Jocelyn Stern, Pahl has given the world a beautiful and intimate album composed of 11 episodes that fit snugly into the eternal present moment. In addition to a breathtakingly gentle ritual orbiting around a set of tones generated by an "Auto-Zither," there are cinematic visitations in the form of a tribute to French filmmaker Jacques Tati and a medley combining elements from The Magnificent Seven and The Seven Samurai. Pahl's whistling, which is tempered with a tidy vibrato, seems always to invoke a theatrical space wherein the proscenium arch is constantly gyrating in a 360-degree orbit round what saxophonist Dewey Redman once called the Ear of the Behearer. Given that Pahl dislikes (or distrusts) the term "experimental," perhaps the best word for what Little Bang Theory has accomplished here is "experiential." ~ arwulf arwulf, Rovi

1		Day Dream
2		Toy Suite #3
3		Garden Party
4		Tati
5		Drifter
6		Visionary Cheapskates
7		Magnificent 7 Samurai
8		Dada Boy Overture
9		Tumble Weed
10		Autozither #1
11		Another Daydream

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