It says more than a little that, fifteen years after his death, there are still people performing the Brechtish avant-cabaret songs of Tom Cora. Not in the sense of a repertory group. There is, or has been, one of those: his old band Roof (Luc Ex, Phil Minton and Michael Vachter) added pianist Veryan Weston after Cora's death, changed their name to Four Walls, releasing two fine albums dominated by Cora compositions and then adding horns and changing their name to A Door and Two Windows (sadly unrecorded). But members of those groups continue to find his songs relevant.
Musique Action #04 finds Ex, Minton, Vachter and Weston in various combinations with singer (and Cora's widow) Catherine Jauniaux and harpist Zeena Parkins (who joined Cora and Fred Frith in the band Skeleton Crew shortly after moving to New York in the 1980s) along with turntablists Christian Marclay and Otomo Yoshihide. Nothing about this claims to be a memorial project (which only serves to sweeten it), but with eight of the 12 tracks penned by him, Cora is clearly the common factor in absentia.
The album opens with the first three parts of titular piece, penned by Cora and sung in French by Jauniaux and Minton. It's a spirited bit of old-world rollicking fun, which descends immediately (and then re-ascends) with Minton and Weston's "Heliphant," starting as a somber accordion tune and building to a nervous frenzy. Minton and Jauniaux sing her delicate "Indicible" against an incongruously suspenseful jazzy backing. Cora's familiar "Ŕ nous" follows, maintaining the suspense but adding animal and guttural noises. That's followed by two more parts of Madame Luckerniddle and then it's time for a late intermission.
The turntable improv by Marclay is a mere seven minutes and keeps the old world charm alive with warped, plucked strings, calliopes and high-speed classical piano. The turntablists stay on for a few more songs (or Marclay does, anyway — the record doesn't include track-by-track credits so they may have been hiding in the crevices all along) making Cora's "Him" and "Chut" all the more mysterious, with scratchy jazz and electronic crickets in the background. The album ends with Minton and Weston's stark "The Anarchist's Anthem" one of the non-Cora tunes that made it into the 4 Walls songbook.
The album is an odd joy beginning to end, and stands up to any Cora made when he was alive — whether it was meant to or not.
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