Potlatch
In their ear-stinging adherence to the rules of regimented severity as far as the absence of cuddling timbres is concerned, Trio Sowari (Phil Durrant, Bertrand Denzler and Burkhard Beins) are an inflexible unit, uncompromising representatives of non-indulgent perception working with software samples, treatments, tenor sax, percussion, objects and “small electrics”. Shortcut begins with a programmatic declaration of sorts, five razor-sharp pieces aptly titled “Piercing” which, despite the extremely short duration, point to a field of activity where a cold impassiveness in front of any kind of emotion is the rule to comply with. Freezing whispers, tiny lacerations of silence and articulated pops revealing the exact diameter of the originating conduit are put adjacent to practically invisible percussive gestures; movements comparable to someone who, wide awake in the dead of night, decides to start fiddling the insides of a miniature vessel with the poise and the calmness necessary to avoid waking up the rest of the family.
Rarely the presence of an uninterrupted sound can be appreciated, if you happen to consider the harmonic features of a two-minute buzzing hum as such. Let’s not forget it: a well placed drone puts inexplicable mechanisms of our consciousness in motion; the cause is still to be exactly determined, but there must be a reason if so many artists are drawn to that type of secretion. In “Triton” the deficiency of rhapsodic fervour is denoted by empty simulacra of desolateness, the sources combining in swelling surges of petrifying subterranean vibrations and reticent frequencies, while “Trespassing” echoes the sterility of humanity’s fruitless seeking for divine attributes in their insignificant existence through dampened bumps and soft bounces amidst barely variable currents of unmusical resonance. “Dots #2” shuts every door to any residual hope of comprehension, impenetrably inhuman vestiges of what we used to call “notes” diffusing a rational pressure in the environment, undetectable poisoning fumes in an only apparently clear sky.
