For 4 Ears
The recording dates back to 2006, first time in which Urs Leimgruber and Thomas Lehn met and played together. Three years have passed but the whole sounds like it was conceived yesterday; that’s what occurs when artists approach an improvisation with the genuine will of forgetting what their musical training has been, contemporarily filling the brain with the sort of inherently memorized experiences that are exactly what informs our speaking, our reactions to adversity, our behaviour at large. Liberated playing should correspond to this, and it doesn’t happen always. Luckily, in Lausanne it does.
This is an instrumental combination that works, at times perfectly, because of the complementariness of the “styles”. In essence, Leimgruber’s high-pitched surges, the squealing invocations to implausible gods, the tentative conversations with absent birds are the product of a human apparatus that is surely as complex as Lehn’s analogue synth, which in turn tries to adapt its circuits to something that is controlled by a man yet behaves erratically. This fusion of probationary instances and filled interstices, from which peculiar complexities and spastic farts may emerge with the same consequence of an official statement, leaves no chance to interpretation. To quote Phill Niblock, the music “is what it is”, and we’re pretty much content that way. Soliloquies don’t last for long: an intelligent conversation elevates the level of the participants, if talking is effectively needed. This is what seems to materialize during these exchanges, a special brand of virtuosity where the ability in mutual listening counts more than the weirdness of a solution. Still, the moments in which the timbres almost disappear in a puzzling void (as heard in “Deux” following the eleventh minute or so) become occasions for veritable contemplation, at least until Lehn decides that a seriously hypercritical discharge must wake us up.
Finding an unsatisfactory release on this label remains a very difficult task. A specimen of gratifying experimentation which spits in the eye of silence after having paid respect to it (listen to the splendid “Quatre” to understand), Lausanne is a thorny record which is going to stimulate the common sense of those who want to deliver judgments from bias, the confirmation of Leimgruber and Lehn’s intrusive inventiveness.
Wednesday, 9 September 2009
Saturday, 5 September 2009
BURKHARD BEINS – Structural Drift
Künstlerhäuser Worpswede
The constant transition from “plain” improvising percussionist to composer of electroacoustic works seems to cause no problem to Burkhard Beins, who with Structural Drift – entirely conceived during a residency at Künstlerhäuser Worpswede from April to June of this year – managed to manufacture stimulating music through the use of a few instruments and objects, a clear-minded disposition of the same in rather linear compositional schemes and a clued-up utilization of the studio for editing and post-production. Generators include “e-Bowed and propelled zithers, analogue synthesizers, E.T. (!), looper, igniters, chimes, wood block, steel bands, fire and stones”. Some of these sources result practically unrecognizable, yet the ensuing amalgamation is rich in implications despite a deceptive elemental simplicity.
That something has changed in regard to Beins’ habitual structures - typically organized around a well-controlled discipline of intuitiveness - is immediately evident as “Drift 1” gradually invades the listening space via a velvety layering of synthetic tones that – once juxtaposed – elicit a classic effect of throbbing undulation which instantly puts Eliane Radigue, or Maryanne Amacher, in the listener’s mind. Only after a while a tangible rhythmic component appears, a cyclical repetition of quiet asymmetrical cracks (pebbles, perhaps?) that results extremely functional in comparison with the entrancing qualities of the fundamental pulse.
The second movement is more of a consecutiveness of interconnected settings, although a somewhat inert stratum often remains at the core of frequent moments of overcoming entrancement. The concrete materials begin to establish their authority pretty prominently, recurrent discharges of hoarse frequencies, clicking insurgences and metallic intromissions acting as contrasting elements in Beins’ palette, appearing in a state of undress for the occasional instances in which the electronic background disappear. About six minutes in, a gorgeous melodic figure depicted by strings establishes the main shade of what’s possibly the most emotionally charged moment of the album. A cross of heavenliness and irredeemable dissonance whose underlying harmonics sound like a choir of dirty-faced angels, before a clamorous rumble comes and destroys the scene decisively. Sort of a rite of passage backwards, from weird echoes back to the concreteness of a tough reality, the latter looking as the composer’s focal point of interest. The section ends with a three-note chime accompanied by infinite/looped upper partials (probably from the bowed zither) and additional interference, signalling that the storm may have passed but it’s better not to sleep.
The final and shortest track (“Drift 3”) is quite instable as far as timbres and dynamic continuity are concerned, characterized as it is by white noise-ish emanations, sudden interruptions, solid pitches that seem to eschew humanity, the whole sounding as cold as a hospital room invaded by cyber-insects. Contrarily to what many artists do, “dulcis in fundo” is not Beins’ motto: as a matter of fact he pushes us into a hole full of puzzlement and uncertainty, leaving doors open to different interpretations of his ideas. An added value to a cleverly succinct and, to all intents and purposes, brilliant record.
The constant transition from “plain” improvising percussionist to composer of electroacoustic works seems to cause no problem to Burkhard Beins, who with Structural Drift – entirely conceived during a residency at Künstlerhäuser Worpswede from April to June of this year – managed to manufacture stimulating music through the use of a few instruments and objects, a clear-minded disposition of the same in rather linear compositional schemes and a clued-up utilization of the studio for editing and post-production. Generators include “e-Bowed and propelled zithers, analogue synthesizers, E.T. (!), looper, igniters, chimes, wood block, steel bands, fire and stones”. Some of these sources result practically unrecognizable, yet the ensuing amalgamation is rich in implications despite a deceptive elemental simplicity.
That something has changed in regard to Beins’ habitual structures - typically organized around a well-controlled discipline of intuitiveness - is immediately evident as “Drift 1” gradually invades the listening space via a velvety layering of synthetic tones that – once juxtaposed – elicit a classic effect of throbbing undulation which instantly puts Eliane Radigue, or Maryanne Amacher, in the listener’s mind. Only after a while a tangible rhythmic component appears, a cyclical repetition of quiet asymmetrical cracks (pebbles, perhaps?) that results extremely functional in comparison with the entrancing qualities of the fundamental pulse.
The second movement is more of a consecutiveness of interconnected settings, although a somewhat inert stratum often remains at the core of frequent moments of overcoming entrancement. The concrete materials begin to establish their authority pretty prominently, recurrent discharges of hoarse frequencies, clicking insurgences and metallic intromissions acting as contrasting elements in Beins’ palette, appearing in a state of undress for the occasional instances in which the electronic background disappear. About six minutes in, a gorgeous melodic figure depicted by strings establishes the main shade of what’s possibly the most emotionally charged moment of the album. A cross of heavenliness and irredeemable dissonance whose underlying harmonics sound like a choir of dirty-faced angels, before a clamorous rumble comes and destroys the scene decisively. Sort of a rite of passage backwards, from weird echoes back to the concreteness of a tough reality, the latter looking as the composer’s focal point of interest. The section ends with a three-note chime accompanied by infinite/looped upper partials (probably from the bowed zither) and additional interference, signalling that the storm may have passed but it’s better not to sleep.
The final and shortest track (“Drift 3”) is quite instable as far as timbres and dynamic continuity are concerned, characterized as it is by white noise-ish emanations, sudden interruptions, solid pitches that seem to eschew humanity, the whole sounding as cold as a hospital room invaded by cyber-insects. Contrarily to what many artists do, “dulcis in fundo” is not Beins’ motto: as a matter of fact he pushes us into a hole full of puzzlement and uncertainty, leaving doors open to different interpretations of his ideas. An added value to a cleverly succinct and, to all intents and purposes, brilliant record.
Friday, 4 September 2009
FRANCISCO LÓPEZ / MICHAEL GENDREAU – Tddm
Sonoris
In times like the ones we live in, contrasts are at the basis of everyday life and nothing more than a working place showcases them. Think, for example, to the difficulties typical of the relationships with colleagues, or to the mind-boggling irrationality in the combination of routine procedures, extreme noise and vocal exchanges commonly found in a factory. This is a good starting point for the appreciation of Tddm, a double CD comprising four long segments chock full of deafening environments and thunderous machines interspersed by exceptionally rare moments in which a faint human presence – or an intercom message - is perceived amidst the continuous threat of the mechanical monsters.
The recordings were made in Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore, China and Japan, as to homage the renowned toughness of certain Asian labourers, used to the hardest sacrifices yet frequently swallowed by a sense of duty that represents both a stimulus to exemplary productivity and the reason for nervous instability and, ultimately, suicide in the nastiest instances. This might remind someone of Phill Niblock’s films, where infinite drones accompany the images of people performing manual works but this release is much less rewarding in terms of adjacent-frequency nirvanas. López and Gendreau share the discs with a piece each, having separately collected sonorities that range from massively static to heavily rhythmic. Theirs is a coldly detached view of the ambience from which this stuff is originated: the raw materials remain for the large part untreated (even though some degree of editing seems to typify particularly reiterative parts), only the definitive dynamics decided by the assemblers. Describing what happens in detail is utterly pointless, although the first section of López’s “D138” is transfixing to say the least, profound reverberations and vacillating auricular membranes the by-product of a superior susceptibility to the propagation of sonic waves.
The monolithic qualities of the captured sounds reveal a series of acoustic sub-particles attributing to the record its “musical” characteristics. This is actually another functional contrast: the clunking mass, the violent thudding, the constant racket of roaring apparatuses that, especially at the beginning of Gendreau’s “T921” gives the false idea that airport echoes are being heard, are in effect “minimalist” according to a heartless repetitiveness absurdly determining a sort of hypnosis, the brain cuddled by the booming resonance of these monotonous cycles. In turn, a disproportion with the tremendous amount of physical and mental tension surely experienced by the plant’s personnel during their shifts.
Indeed, should a single album be labelled as a paradigm of “industrial music”, this would have to be it. But Gendreau and López are not Esplendor Geometrico or Maurizio Bianchi: they are authentic composers who in this circumstance chose to use alienation as the principal factor in a project whose distressing temperament must not detract from a tangible value. One has to learn to find musicality down to the apparently inaccessible lower spheres of clangour, and there’s no doubt that this nice pair mostly succeed in letting us crave the mere illusion of a tiny light at the end of a massacring experience.
In times like the ones we live in, contrasts are at the basis of everyday life and nothing more than a working place showcases them. Think, for example, to the difficulties typical of the relationships with colleagues, or to the mind-boggling irrationality in the combination of routine procedures, extreme noise and vocal exchanges commonly found in a factory. This is a good starting point for the appreciation of Tddm, a double CD comprising four long segments chock full of deafening environments and thunderous machines interspersed by exceptionally rare moments in which a faint human presence – or an intercom message - is perceived amidst the continuous threat of the mechanical monsters.
The recordings were made in Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore, China and Japan, as to homage the renowned toughness of certain Asian labourers, used to the hardest sacrifices yet frequently swallowed by a sense of duty that represents both a stimulus to exemplary productivity and the reason for nervous instability and, ultimately, suicide in the nastiest instances. This might remind someone of Phill Niblock’s films, where infinite drones accompany the images of people performing manual works but this release is much less rewarding in terms of adjacent-frequency nirvanas. López and Gendreau share the discs with a piece each, having separately collected sonorities that range from massively static to heavily rhythmic. Theirs is a coldly detached view of the ambience from which this stuff is originated: the raw materials remain for the large part untreated (even though some degree of editing seems to typify particularly reiterative parts), only the definitive dynamics decided by the assemblers. Describing what happens in detail is utterly pointless, although the first section of López’s “D138” is transfixing to say the least, profound reverberations and vacillating auricular membranes the by-product of a superior susceptibility to the propagation of sonic waves.
The monolithic qualities of the captured sounds reveal a series of acoustic sub-particles attributing to the record its “musical” characteristics. This is actually another functional contrast: the clunking mass, the violent thudding, the constant racket of roaring apparatuses that, especially at the beginning of Gendreau’s “T921” gives the false idea that airport echoes are being heard, are in effect “minimalist” according to a heartless repetitiveness absurdly determining a sort of hypnosis, the brain cuddled by the booming resonance of these monotonous cycles. In turn, a disproportion with the tremendous amount of physical and mental tension surely experienced by the plant’s personnel during their shifts.
Indeed, should a single album be labelled as a paradigm of “industrial music”, this would have to be it. But Gendreau and López are not Esplendor Geometrico or Maurizio Bianchi: they are authentic composers who in this circumstance chose to use alienation as the principal factor in a project whose distressing temperament must not detract from a tangible value. One has to learn to find musicality down to the apparently inaccessible lower spheres of clangour, and there’s no doubt that this nice pair mostly succeed in letting us crave the mere illusion of a tiny light at the end of a massacring experience.
Saturday, 29 August 2009
GRAHAM HALLIWELL / LEE PATTERSON – Terrain
Confront Collectors Series
Respectively credited with “saxophone feedback and processing” and “field recordings and amplified devices”, both Graham Halliwell and Lee Patterson are unyielding assemblers of sonic tinctures who seem to have chosen a reasonably anonymous profile - as opposed to unnecessary prominence - by letting the sounds do the talking. They’ve been involved in a fair share of consistently enthralling albums in recent times, Terrain being no exception: a profound, deceptively simple proposal whose mystifying tones are the result of numerous layers of crucial elements that, in their unfussiness, reveal a longing for those intangibles that push a scientist way beyond a process of pure analysis. Halliwell and Patterson look for the elusive magic of linearity, subtending a whole world of hidden significances.
In keeping with the above premise the record itself is pretty difficult to evaluate, a work which – as soon as the CD begins to spin and the reviewer’s mental format is worn – gradually shatters convictions, each session forcing a reassessment of the message and, especially, the attempt to find decrypting tools for something that, on the contrary, appears so manifest at first. What could be said in terms of sheer description is that the research is conducted around the extremities of various aural surfaces in a rather fluid geometry: the contrast between pulsing oscillations and straight electronic stripes, the opposition of ultra-bass and over-acute emissions, the absolute homogeneity resulting from the superimposition of just traceable locations and masterfully handled feedback.
In the third of the four movements – which this writer finds impressively proportional to his own vibration/consciousness quotient – the inexplicable radiance born from different planes of quivering reverberation, in turn causing a marvellous alternance of motionlessness and cyclical throb due to the clash of contiguous overtones, quite oddly introduces a hard-to-accept truth. You know that those unidentified resonances are leading to a superior form of awareness; yet the slightest interference – a noise from the outside, someone who tries to talk without realizing about the necessity of silence in that very instant – constitutes a low blow to the determination of maintaining that link to an advanced stage active, the balloon of confidence deflated by the beak of acquiescence to rational poverty, a translucent perfection spoiled by irrelevant personal expressions.
I’ve been writing at length a propos of the inevitability of approaching certain materials in appropriate contexts, recoiling in front of reports that mention approaches to this kind of release via iPod or Walkman while on a train or in a subway station, places where only a much thicker action can actually be heard (but not accurately analyzed), often jeopardizing our precious hearing given the inevitable requirement of substantial headphone volume. It took five listens of Terrain in a realistically quiet room – and I was not even completely satisfied with the level of stillness - before having a stab at jotting down words that, as frequently occurring when dealing with these genres, are probably near-useless. This causes a serious inside fracture. On the one hand I’m intensely keen on this type of art, looking at these records as a weapon against the stagnation of perception; on the other, we must wonder how many people are in fact properly listening to them, at least partially respecting the creators’ original diagram. This music acts on the psyche in extremely subtle, subliminal fashion, and it’s highly unlikely that more than a handful of individuals will be able to understand its almost disconcerting emotional density, a lesson in compositional soberness and acoustic sensitivity that instead risks to linger in semi-obscurity or - worse still - to be confused among the hordes of minor creative entities hiding behind a droning/environmental mask. Let’s not permit it.
Respectively credited with “saxophone feedback and processing” and “field recordings and amplified devices”, both Graham Halliwell and Lee Patterson are unyielding assemblers of sonic tinctures who seem to have chosen a reasonably anonymous profile - as opposed to unnecessary prominence - by letting the sounds do the talking. They’ve been involved in a fair share of consistently enthralling albums in recent times, Terrain being no exception: a profound, deceptively simple proposal whose mystifying tones are the result of numerous layers of crucial elements that, in their unfussiness, reveal a longing for those intangibles that push a scientist way beyond a process of pure analysis. Halliwell and Patterson look for the elusive magic of linearity, subtending a whole world of hidden significances.
In keeping with the above premise the record itself is pretty difficult to evaluate, a work which – as soon as the CD begins to spin and the reviewer’s mental format is worn – gradually shatters convictions, each session forcing a reassessment of the message and, especially, the attempt to find decrypting tools for something that, on the contrary, appears so manifest at first. What could be said in terms of sheer description is that the research is conducted around the extremities of various aural surfaces in a rather fluid geometry: the contrast between pulsing oscillations and straight electronic stripes, the opposition of ultra-bass and over-acute emissions, the absolute homogeneity resulting from the superimposition of just traceable locations and masterfully handled feedback.
In the third of the four movements – which this writer finds impressively proportional to his own vibration/consciousness quotient – the inexplicable radiance born from different planes of quivering reverberation, in turn causing a marvellous alternance of motionlessness and cyclical throb due to the clash of contiguous overtones, quite oddly introduces a hard-to-accept truth. You know that those unidentified resonances are leading to a superior form of awareness; yet the slightest interference – a noise from the outside, someone who tries to talk without realizing about the necessity of silence in that very instant – constitutes a low blow to the determination of maintaining that link to an advanced stage active, the balloon of confidence deflated by the beak of acquiescence to rational poverty, a translucent perfection spoiled by irrelevant personal expressions.
I’ve been writing at length a propos of the inevitability of approaching certain materials in appropriate contexts, recoiling in front of reports that mention approaches to this kind of release via iPod or Walkman while on a train or in a subway station, places where only a much thicker action can actually be heard (but not accurately analyzed), often jeopardizing our precious hearing given the inevitable requirement of substantial headphone volume. It took five listens of Terrain in a realistically quiet room – and I was not even completely satisfied with the level of stillness - before having a stab at jotting down words that, as frequently occurring when dealing with these genres, are probably near-useless. This causes a serious inside fracture. On the one hand I’m intensely keen on this type of art, looking at these records as a weapon against the stagnation of perception; on the other, we must wonder how many people are in fact properly listening to them, at least partially respecting the creators’ original diagram. This music acts on the psyche in extremely subtle, subliminal fashion, and it’s highly unlikely that more than a handful of individuals will be able to understand its almost disconcerting emotional density, a lesson in compositional soberness and acoustic sensitivity that instead risks to linger in semi-obscurity or - worse still - to be confused among the hordes of minor creative entities hiding behind a droning/environmental mask. Let’s not permit it.
Friday, 28 August 2009
OCEANS OF SILVER & BLOOD – Live At Cafe Oto
Confront
The two instalments of Vibra were stunning examples of Mark Wastell’s ability in controlling and directing the quivering shades of a tam-tam to generate that type of resonance that goes much further than a sheer scientific definition of “vibration”, the listeners totally engulfed in a new perception of themselves as parts of an inexpressible continuity which encompasses every meaningful gesture and insightful reflection, leaving the material characteristics of that particular moment out of the equation. Oceans Of Silver & Blood stretch these concepts to a larger extent, optimizing that majestically soul-enhancing reverberation with a very slight touch of thickness, although appreciable only in spurts. In this duo, Swedish Joachim Nordwall is the collaborative alter ego of the Englishman, the respective voices fused in a single hymn to the depth of silent discernment via an assortment of percussive and electronic nuances.
Recorded at London’s Cafe Oto last year, the performance starts with the audience immediately shutting up – completely - as soon as the musicians appear. The set is sequenced as a chain of dynamic transformations following an arc of sorts. The impact is somewhat substantial at first, physically influential sound waves infused with cyclical tremors eliciting an irresistible unrest forcing us to walk around the room to appreciate the frequencies reacting differently according to the spot. In the central phase (my overall favourite) we’re gently kissed by the luminosity of softly murmuring hues, the overtones depicting a fragile yet long-lasting echoing which, barring chemical aids, is able to cause the brain to rewind the tape of memory and reliving sensations from the past without actually individuating the details or a precise temporal location. One realizes of having been there before, but I’ll be damned if someone manages to put the finger on how this mechanism works not including the pathetic from-the-manual technicalities utilized by the average psychologist. Still, this is the kind of feeling people might wish when the transition from flesh to ash will finally occur.
Once lulled to rational stupor, the gong’s choral rumble and a swarm of reasonably coarse emissions take centre stage, addressing the sonic organism towards the zone where pulsating awareness and unsympathetically buzzing impediments conduct matching existences, each trying to assert an influence on the psyche. It’s this contiguity that defines the peculiar melange of sweet and sour that the final part of the exhibition holds as a not-so-pleasing surprise. If an embrace is what you’re looking for, this is the wrong place to be in. There’s always a chimera awaiting for annihilation somewhere; Wastell and Nordwall look intentioned to rule out exceptions, even if they keep listening suggestions from the higher spheres of acuity.
In the closing three minutes the artists let the acoustic mass stabilize until a blurred drone remains alone, its audibility gradually decreasing as we near the end. The unvoiced, transfixed spectators ultimately liberate the energies in a polite, if convinced – and deserved – applause. The ideal conclusion for another perfect release by this not overly prolific, tremendously consistent label.
The two instalments of Vibra were stunning examples of Mark Wastell’s ability in controlling and directing the quivering shades of a tam-tam to generate that type of resonance that goes much further than a sheer scientific definition of “vibration”, the listeners totally engulfed in a new perception of themselves as parts of an inexpressible continuity which encompasses every meaningful gesture and insightful reflection, leaving the material characteristics of that particular moment out of the equation. Oceans Of Silver & Blood stretch these concepts to a larger extent, optimizing that majestically soul-enhancing reverberation with a very slight touch of thickness, although appreciable only in spurts. In this duo, Swedish Joachim Nordwall is the collaborative alter ego of the Englishman, the respective voices fused in a single hymn to the depth of silent discernment via an assortment of percussive and electronic nuances.
Recorded at London’s Cafe Oto last year, the performance starts with the audience immediately shutting up – completely - as soon as the musicians appear. The set is sequenced as a chain of dynamic transformations following an arc of sorts. The impact is somewhat substantial at first, physically influential sound waves infused with cyclical tremors eliciting an irresistible unrest forcing us to walk around the room to appreciate the frequencies reacting differently according to the spot. In the central phase (my overall favourite) we’re gently kissed by the luminosity of softly murmuring hues, the overtones depicting a fragile yet long-lasting echoing which, barring chemical aids, is able to cause the brain to rewind the tape of memory and reliving sensations from the past without actually individuating the details or a precise temporal location. One realizes of having been there before, but I’ll be damned if someone manages to put the finger on how this mechanism works not including the pathetic from-the-manual technicalities utilized by the average psychologist. Still, this is the kind of feeling people might wish when the transition from flesh to ash will finally occur.
Once lulled to rational stupor, the gong’s choral rumble and a swarm of reasonably coarse emissions take centre stage, addressing the sonic organism towards the zone where pulsating awareness and unsympathetically buzzing impediments conduct matching existences, each trying to assert an influence on the psyche. It’s this contiguity that defines the peculiar melange of sweet and sour that the final part of the exhibition holds as a not-so-pleasing surprise. If an embrace is what you’re looking for, this is the wrong place to be in. There’s always a chimera awaiting for annihilation somewhere; Wastell and Nordwall look intentioned to rule out exceptions, even if they keep listening suggestions from the higher spheres of acuity.
In the closing three minutes the artists let the acoustic mass stabilize until a blurred drone remains alone, its audibility gradually decreasing as we near the end. The unvoiced, transfixed spectators ultimately liberate the energies in a polite, if convinced – and deserved – applause. The ideal conclusion for another perfect release by this not overly prolific, tremendously consistent label.
Thursday, 27 August 2009
SOPHIE AGNEL – Capsizing Moments
Emanem
This unedited concert, recorded November 2008 at Les Instants Chavirés in Montreuil (Paris), probably represents the official induction to the pantheon of distinguished improvisers for a musician who’s been working just above the clandestine status in spite of having already released consistently important works, notably the excellent Tasting with Phil Minton on Another Timbre. Capsizing Moments portrays the austere humanity of an unaided performer: able and willing to expose her convictions and fears without looking back, ready to be accepted or refused, yet not intentioned to loosen the fighting stance regardless of the human frailties revealed by this splendidly irrational substance, born from the alteration of the instrument’s accents via different kinds of inorganic enhancements. The artist calls the apparatus “extensive piano”: a machine whose sonic capacity is positively over-standard.
The first movement starts obsessively percussive, making the most of the big box’s lower registers. An initial wall of rumbling tones soiled by an assortment of clattering items is gradually reduced into a series of scantily delivered hits, one or two pitches maximum, echoed by plastic-sounding bouncing and an underlying monochrome pattern that, with eyes closed, we could nearly associate to unclear noises from a remote construction site, or perhaps a chugging motionless boat next to a quay. There’s almost a sense of frustration when intuiting the potential expansion of a castle that’s instead only a ruin, hopelessly exposed when Agnel suddenly decides that the hammering is finished, the corrosion of resonance left alone to do justice to the mysteriously bitter aura of this momentary transformation in an impressive flash of transcendence.
The rasping bowing introduces to a short and striking episode starting with piercing hyper-squeals – picture a bionic version of Hitchcock’s Psycho - instantaneously shut up by a clustery bang. Following a few interlocutory touches, a magnificent arpeggio - interspersed with more dissonant punctuations – is defined by the peculiar reaction of the preparations, a somewhat softer embodiment of Keith Tippett materializing, accompanied by a couple of woodpeckers jabbing a tabla. An irredeemable propensity to harmonic uncertainty is symbolized by Agnel stopping the procedures to start a new scenario of lumpy micro-chords, strings plucked and pounded in increasingly growing rage, a veritable criticism of pianistic savoir-faire.
Five seconds of calmness and we’re at the final and longest chapter. The protagonist looks around as to assess the damage done, residual ashes still smoking, memories of turbulent action and faded traces of classical-tinged environments rendered useless by the rattling qualities of every attempted profile. This is where indistinctness and lucidity wrestle, not before trying to reach an agreement: the upper partials are contaminated, the zither-like reverberations oxidized, concordance misshapen to the point of utter estrangement. Out of the blue, an acutely jingling reiteration remains solitary for a short while, immediately replaced by tinny sliding objects, isolated knocks and selected picks spotting this absurdly effective nudity. Indeed the sections in which Agnel diminishes the incidence of the “regular” piano - a palette prevalently dictated by the contrast between seclusion and instant vision - are possibly the ones who define her greatness, an implacable lust for collapsing archetypal designs kept under strict control by an inner musicality which renders this flux of consciousness akin to a proper composition in countless occasions.
As the performance approaches closure one feels like watching an old animal patiently searching for a place to finally lay its drained body at rest and peacefully expire after many years of life in the wilderness. This compliance with the nature’s laws – particularly the acceptance of an end, in effect the unsolved dilemma of most people’s psyche – is what makes this music stirring. Birth, existence, struggle, survival, ideas, delusions, demise. It’s so obviously wonderful, and Capsizing Moments depicts all of this entirely, sensitively. When weak exhalations from the inside imply the piece’s termination, further explanations turn out to be a waste of time.
This unedited concert, recorded November 2008 at Les Instants Chavirés in Montreuil (Paris), probably represents the official induction to the pantheon of distinguished improvisers for a musician who’s been working just above the clandestine status in spite of having already released consistently important works, notably the excellent Tasting with Phil Minton on Another Timbre. Capsizing Moments portrays the austere humanity of an unaided performer: able and willing to expose her convictions and fears without looking back, ready to be accepted or refused, yet not intentioned to loosen the fighting stance regardless of the human frailties revealed by this splendidly irrational substance, born from the alteration of the instrument’s accents via different kinds of inorganic enhancements. The artist calls the apparatus “extensive piano”: a machine whose sonic capacity is positively over-standard.
The first movement starts obsessively percussive, making the most of the big box’s lower registers. An initial wall of rumbling tones soiled by an assortment of clattering items is gradually reduced into a series of scantily delivered hits, one or two pitches maximum, echoed by plastic-sounding bouncing and an underlying monochrome pattern that, with eyes closed, we could nearly associate to unclear noises from a remote construction site, or perhaps a chugging motionless boat next to a quay. There’s almost a sense of frustration when intuiting the potential expansion of a castle that’s instead only a ruin, hopelessly exposed when Agnel suddenly decides that the hammering is finished, the corrosion of resonance left alone to do justice to the mysteriously bitter aura of this momentary transformation in an impressive flash of transcendence.
The rasping bowing introduces to a short and striking episode starting with piercing hyper-squeals – picture a bionic version of Hitchcock’s Psycho - instantaneously shut up by a clustery bang. Following a few interlocutory touches, a magnificent arpeggio - interspersed with more dissonant punctuations – is defined by the peculiar reaction of the preparations, a somewhat softer embodiment of Keith Tippett materializing, accompanied by a couple of woodpeckers jabbing a tabla. An irredeemable propensity to harmonic uncertainty is symbolized by Agnel stopping the procedures to start a new scenario of lumpy micro-chords, strings plucked and pounded in increasingly growing rage, a veritable criticism of pianistic savoir-faire.
Five seconds of calmness and we’re at the final and longest chapter. The protagonist looks around as to assess the damage done, residual ashes still smoking, memories of turbulent action and faded traces of classical-tinged environments rendered useless by the rattling qualities of every attempted profile. This is where indistinctness and lucidity wrestle, not before trying to reach an agreement: the upper partials are contaminated, the zither-like reverberations oxidized, concordance misshapen to the point of utter estrangement. Out of the blue, an acutely jingling reiteration remains solitary for a short while, immediately replaced by tinny sliding objects, isolated knocks and selected picks spotting this absurdly effective nudity. Indeed the sections in which Agnel diminishes the incidence of the “regular” piano - a palette prevalently dictated by the contrast between seclusion and instant vision - are possibly the ones who define her greatness, an implacable lust for collapsing archetypal designs kept under strict control by an inner musicality which renders this flux of consciousness akin to a proper composition in countless occasions.
As the performance approaches closure one feels like watching an old animal patiently searching for a place to finally lay its drained body at rest and peacefully expire after many years of life in the wilderness. This compliance with the nature’s laws – particularly the acceptance of an end, in effect the unsolved dilemma of most people’s psyche – is what makes this music stirring. Birth, existence, struggle, survival, ideas, delusions, demise. It’s so obviously wonderful, and Capsizing Moments depicts all of this entirely, sensitively. When weak exhalations from the inside imply the piece’s termination, further explanations turn out to be a waste of time.
Tuesday, 18 August 2009
MARY HALVORSON / REUBEN RADDING / NATE WOOLEY – Crackleknob
hatOLOGY
Can impavid fighters against remunerative compromise sound so intelligibly sweet while improvising, to the point of having us wondering where the score is? Does artistic significance automatically imply inhospitable counterpoint? Is procedural sharpness a necessary negation of the magnification of conterminous instrumental details?
Crackleknob is a fully grown, moderately aerated recording combining brilliantly unique representatives of the modern jazz/free music scene gathered under the umbrella of respect, both reciprocal and for the audience. Mary Halvorson’s rational approach to the fingerboard is nirvana for those, like yours truly, who are tired of listening to trite versions of standards and/or incoherent finger-babbling aptly described as “spontaneous abandonment of technique” to hunt hypothetical liberties, a smart translation for “absence of ideas”. Reuben Radding is a lyrically composite bassist, his timbre a balanced mixture of demulcent harmonics, visionary abstractions and immediate mutability, cogent insertions permanently at the service of a pre-established cooperative cleverness. Nate Wooley is still able to extract drops of vital juice from the ghosts of famous men with the horn to transform those essences in invigorating fumes of timbral disintegration and not-exactly-diplomatic excrescences, halfway through a caustically refined helpmate and a coroner analyzing the corpse of a hermaphrodite variety of jazz.
“Quavering Voices Of The Mutilated” is the ultimate explanation of what these people do together: as Halvorson seams obstinately angular patterns and logically articulated spikes of anti-melodic percussiveness tinged by her strings’ nudity, at times deciding to dish up the companions with solitary chordal shards and Fripp-ish dissonant arpeggios, Radding punctuates the interplay with a considerable degree of ascendancy on the trio’s essential sonority, appearing as a man who has finally decided to settle for a somewhat regular way of life after having tasted the assorted facets of sonic intemperance, Wooley observing, taking notes and – often unexpectedly – coming out with cloudy lines that might occasionally manifest anomalously, yet maintain that quid of prosperousness guaranteeing auditory fulfilment even to the less expert recipient. “Caldwell, 1925” is a remarkable pictogram of how delicately acoustic this collaboration reveals itself to be, Wooley placing stripes of lament adjacent to Halvorson's clean-sounding whirlwinds, Radding choosing the right strokes to collate the parts in a total unity, potential breakup tendencies absorbed by a wonderfully emotional, only apparent fragility that - on the contrary - defines once and for all the genuine soul of this human combination, which indeed inhabits a superior responsiveness.
Explains the trumpeter: “In general, we work at making the cleanest, most elegantly simple piece of music that we can”. But it’s not stylishness or minimalism we’re dealing with. Crackleknob is one of those albums where skilled ears notice the presence of something much deeper, the sense of almost supernatural intuition that distinguishes a masterpiece from a mere “good job”. A record that hopefully won’t remain covered by the soil of ignorance, shining bright amidst the diverse intriguing challenges that these musicians have tackled in their respective careers to date. Let’s use the word: a classic.
Can impavid fighters against remunerative compromise sound so intelligibly sweet while improvising, to the point of having us wondering where the score is? Does artistic significance automatically imply inhospitable counterpoint? Is procedural sharpness a necessary negation of the magnification of conterminous instrumental details?
Crackleknob is a fully grown, moderately aerated recording combining brilliantly unique representatives of the modern jazz/free music scene gathered under the umbrella of respect, both reciprocal and for the audience. Mary Halvorson’s rational approach to the fingerboard is nirvana for those, like yours truly, who are tired of listening to trite versions of standards and/or incoherent finger-babbling aptly described as “spontaneous abandonment of technique” to hunt hypothetical liberties, a smart translation for “absence of ideas”. Reuben Radding is a lyrically composite bassist, his timbre a balanced mixture of demulcent harmonics, visionary abstractions and immediate mutability, cogent insertions permanently at the service of a pre-established cooperative cleverness. Nate Wooley is still able to extract drops of vital juice from the ghosts of famous men with the horn to transform those essences in invigorating fumes of timbral disintegration and not-exactly-diplomatic excrescences, halfway through a caustically refined helpmate and a coroner analyzing the corpse of a hermaphrodite variety of jazz.
“Quavering Voices Of The Mutilated” is the ultimate explanation of what these people do together: as Halvorson seams obstinately angular patterns and logically articulated spikes of anti-melodic percussiveness tinged by her strings’ nudity, at times deciding to dish up the companions with solitary chordal shards and Fripp-ish dissonant arpeggios, Radding punctuates the interplay with a considerable degree of ascendancy on the trio’s essential sonority, appearing as a man who has finally decided to settle for a somewhat regular way of life after having tasted the assorted facets of sonic intemperance, Wooley observing, taking notes and – often unexpectedly – coming out with cloudy lines that might occasionally manifest anomalously, yet maintain that quid of prosperousness guaranteeing auditory fulfilment even to the less expert recipient. “Caldwell, 1925” is a remarkable pictogram of how delicately acoustic this collaboration reveals itself to be, Wooley placing stripes of lament adjacent to Halvorson's clean-sounding whirlwinds, Radding choosing the right strokes to collate the parts in a total unity, potential breakup tendencies absorbed by a wonderfully emotional, only apparent fragility that - on the contrary - defines once and for all the genuine soul of this human combination, which indeed inhabits a superior responsiveness.
Explains the trumpeter: “In general, we work at making the cleanest, most elegantly simple piece of music that we can”. But it’s not stylishness or minimalism we’re dealing with. Crackleknob is one of those albums where skilled ears notice the presence of something much deeper, the sense of almost supernatural intuition that distinguishes a masterpiece from a mere “good job”. A record that hopefully won’t remain covered by the soil of ignorance, shining bright amidst the diverse intriguing challenges that these musicians have tackled in their respective careers to date. Let’s use the word: a classic.
Sunday, 16 August 2009
TOM HAMILTON / BRUCE EISENBEIL – Shadow Machine
Pogus
A penchant for virtual grimacing, the indomitable tendency to irrepressible dissonance, the now-scientific-now-burlesque approach to improvisation are just three amidst the thousands of different facets contained by Shadow Machine, first recorded collaboration of Tom Hamilton (Nord Modular analogue synthesizer) and Bruce Eisenbeil (guitar). The enterprise works great - and not surprisingly, despite the practically opposite artistic backgrounds. What links this odd couple is the insightful searching for the right balance between discordance (also to be intended as “fearless abandoning of well-trodden paths”) and intuition-driven surprise in scarcely familiar acoustic territories.
Hamilton has forever been interested in analyzing how parallel combinations of unpredictable sounds behave in a predefined environment, his music often perilously nearing the borders of incomprehensibility but still typified by a perspicacious audaciousness which distinguishes the seriousness of those experiments from the mass of wannabes running Max/MSP without knowing what a composition actually is. Eisenbeil is the archetypal no-barrier guitarist, a man who designs apparently abstruse new theories and applications of instrumental techniques that instead reveal the seeds of a superior musical intelligence. One does not collaborate with people such as Cecil Taylor or Evan Parker for nothing.
The respective personalities might be separated by the obvious timbral differences, yet the resulting fusion is totally unproblematic. Although there’s not a single consonant moment to be found in the entire disc, the rationality behind these abstract figurations is enough to prevent discomfort, the musicians following their instinctive propensity to the disaggregation of conventional harmonic codes while establishing a series of regenerative, if barely stable patterns informed by a firm willingness to remain interconnected.
A lesson in maturity, shared suggestions and immediate responsiveness at the basis of an interaction whose value is directly proportional to its compactness, innumerable deviations and refractions notwithstanding. A courageous effort, worthy of your utmost attention.
A penchant for virtual grimacing, the indomitable tendency to irrepressible dissonance, the now-scientific-now-burlesque approach to improvisation are just three amidst the thousands of different facets contained by Shadow Machine, first recorded collaboration of Tom Hamilton (Nord Modular analogue synthesizer) and Bruce Eisenbeil (guitar). The enterprise works great - and not surprisingly, despite the practically opposite artistic backgrounds. What links this odd couple is the insightful searching for the right balance between discordance (also to be intended as “fearless abandoning of well-trodden paths”) and intuition-driven surprise in scarcely familiar acoustic territories.
Hamilton has forever been interested in analyzing how parallel combinations of unpredictable sounds behave in a predefined environment, his music often perilously nearing the borders of incomprehensibility but still typified by a perspicacious audaciousness which distinguishes the seriousness of those experiments from the mass of wannabes running Max/MSP without knowing what a composition actually is. Eisenbeil is the archetypal no-barrier guitarist, a man who designs apparently abstruse new theories and applications of instrumental techniques that instead reveal the seeds of a superior musical intelligence. One does not collaborate with people such as Cecil Taylor or Evan Parker for nothing.
The respective personalities might be separated by the obvious timbral differences, yet the resulting fusion is totally unproblematic. Although there’s not a single consonant moment to be found in the entire disc, the rationality behind these abstract figurations is enough to prevent discomfort, the musicians following their instinctive propensity to the disaggregation of conventional harmonic codes while establishing a series of regenerative, if barely stable patterns informed by a firm willingness to remain interconnected.
A lesson in maturity, shared suggestions and immediate responsiveness at the basis of an interaction whose value is directly proportional to its compactness, innumerable deviations and refractions notwithstanding. A courageous effort, worthy of your utmost attention.
Thursday, 13 August 2009
FOR THOSE WHO LOVE DOWNLOADING RARITIES
This is not a review. It's a letter sent to yours truly by Lubomyr Melnyk - one of the most shamefully overlooked talented composers in the history of contemporary art, the inventor of Continuous Music. I feel that his bitter words are perfect to describe the era in which we live, musically characterized by a "get everything now" downloading bulimia which is indeed killing non commercial music.
Check what you're missing at the above links, maybe you will understand that - at some point in life - choices have to be made. And, incidentally, MP3 sound like shit - especially for this kind of stuff. I just laugh when seeing people thanking enthusiastically for being able to download Roland Kayn albums which they don't even understand, and that in this audio format mean even less of what they can actually realize about the process behind that music. But thanks to internet, even downloading Kayn has become "in".
Yet another example of the disgusting "democracy" that is pervading the world of music today. Once upon a time there were artists and normal people; today, nerds that publish beeps and coughs (and, yes, drones) define themselves "artists"....or at least "specialists".
Here's Melnyk letter:
The Day The Music Died....
The record people who issue my music on CD have been wondering why no one has been buying the Cd-s lately. A visit to the internet is all it took to answer that.
---- !!! I want to ask all those people who created internet sites which offer illegal and free downloads of various composers' music, and all those people who went there and took the CD-s for free, did you really think about what you were doing?
Did you really think that "Oh, it doesn't matter, these artists are all millionaires anyway. and what difference can it make to them, "# etc. etc. etc.....
Well, it has made a very big difference, really.
For one thing, it means that no more Cd-s of my work can get issued,
---- because the small companies can not afford to do it ...
In the last year, BANDURA Records ---- that has been pumping in a lot of hard work to bring Continuous Music into the world, has sold 3 --- three ! CD-s --- in this entire year. The record store in San Francisco that has been the one bright spot in this dismal night of CD-sales, has totally stopped ordering my music ... UNSEEN WORLDS that worked so hard on KMH, hasn’t been able to sell the thousand CD-s that cost so much to make. Unable to recover the costs, they have given up plans to make other issues of my work.
And I, who had hoped that soon I could put out some new music on CD and give people more of this rare piano music, will not be doing that.
Together with the thousands of others in the music world, where people worked and fought so hard to get ahead and bring their vision out into the light, I am now "out of work". Hundreds and hundreds of music stores have closed down all over the world, thousands of people have lost their jobs, and composers who gave their lives to creating music have all lost hope ....
Just what did all of you who stole the CD-s over internet think ---- that producing a CD is free and takes just 10 minutes?? Sure, that is what you told yourself, but you knew it wasn't true.
BANDURA Records and UNSEEN WORLDS put in a LOT of work. time and money into creating the CD-s of my music works .... and they have not made anything on it. In fact. BANDURA Records has only lost money on making CD-s over the last 5 years. UNSEEN WORLDS has yet to recover the costs of making their KMH re-issue.
And I, who drive a rusty car from 1986 and have not had a new piece of clothing or shoes since I was teenager and my parents bought these things for me, I who was willing to endure 39 years of shit poverty because I had a dream ----- that one day, this Continuous Music, that needs so much time and work to keep alive, --- this pathetic dream that one day, one lovely day, enough people would care enough for this music that they would actually buy an LP or a CD of it, --- I had this really stupid dream that IF enough people would do this, I could live.
This stupid dream is no more.
Those of you who did not want to fork out the price of two pizzas for my Cd-s, you KNEW that there is no other pianist in the world whose fingers and body can create this new piano music ---- and deep inside, if you actually heard this piano music, you KNEW that since only I can not play it now, then NO ONE, ever, ... will be able to play it, (unless someone wants to devote years and years of their life to the difficult training that is needed --- ) then these official CD-s are the only hope for the future of this music.
Your barren MP-3 download with a Maxell or Verbatim stamp will be nothing.
-- and you knew that in stealing these CD-s, you were killing this delicate young sapling of a tree that was struggling to reach the light.
You created that sticky black cloud that blocked the sunlight from this young struggling tree. You might tell yourself, that "I really didn't know" --- but really, you did !
You just didn't want to pay the price of a couple of pizzas.
I want to thank those few people in this world who actually bought a CD of my work. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for not stealing it --- the way the others have done. Thank you for supporting this music and my work. For you, I will talk with BANDURA and see if we can do something special, just for you.
And those of you who did steal the CD-s over internet, or took a copy from your friend, you might have the moral courage to send at least ten bucks to BANDURA or , if you stole KMH, then to UNSEEN WORLDS --- or maybe just buy a CD !! to give away as a present for your library....
This is now all in your hands. Because the way things stand with the free downloading,
there will be no new Continuous Music issued ... I can not make any more CD-s.
--- Because each of you dowloaders banged your own personalized nail into the coffin of this beautiful music.
And not just my music and work, but the work of hundreds of other composers and musicians all over the world.
Lubomyr Melnyk
August, 2009
Check what you're missing at the above links, maybe you will understand that - at some point in life - choices have to be made. And, incidentally, MP3 sound like shit - especially for this kind of stuff. I just laugh when seeing people thanking enthusiastically for being able to download Roland Kayn albums which they don't even understand, and that in this audio format mean even less of what they can actually realize about the process behind that music. But thanks to internet, even downloading Kayn has become "in".
Yet another example of the disgusting "democracy" that is pervading the world of music today. Once upon a time there were artists and normal people; today, nerds that publish beeps and coughs (and, yes, drones) define themselves "artists"....or at least "specialists".
Here's Melnyk letter:
The Day The Music Died....
The record people who issue my music on CD have been wondering why no one has been buying the Cd-s lately. A visit to the internet is all it took to answer that.
---- !!! I want to ask all those people who created internet sites which offer illegal and free downloads of various composers' music, and all those people who went there and took the CD-s for free, did you really think about what you were doing?
Did you really think that "Oh, it doesn't matter, these artists are all millionaires anyway. and what difference can it make to them, "# etc. etc. etc.....
Well, it has made a very big difference, really.
For one thing, it means that no more Cd-s of my work can get issued,
---- because the small companies can not afford to do it ...
In the last year, BANDURA Records ---- that has been pumping in a lot of hard work to bring Continuous Music into the world, has sold 3 --- three ! CD-s --- in this entire year. The record store in San Francisco that has been the one bright spot in this dismal night of CD-sales, has totally stopped ordering my music ... UNSEEN WORLDS that worked so hard on KMH, hasn’t been able to sell the thousand CD-s that cost so much to make. Unable to recover the costs, they have given up plans to make other issues of my work.
And I, who had hoped that soon I could put out some new music on CD and give people more of this rare piano music, will not be doing that.
Together with the thousands of others in the music world, where people worked and fought so hard to get ahead and bring their vision out into the light, I am now "out of work". Hundreds and hundreds of music stores have closed down all over the world, thousands of people have lost their jobs, and composers who gave their lives to creating music have all lost hope ....
Just what did all of you who stole the CD-s over internet think ---- that producing a CD is free and takes just 10 minutes?? Sure, that is what you told yourself, but you knew it wasn't true.
BANDURA Records and UNSEEN WORLDS put in a LOT of work. time and money into creating the CD-s of my music works .... and they have not made anything on it. In fact. BANDURA Records has only lost money on making CD-s over the last 5 years. UNSEEN WORLDS has yet to recover the costs of making their KMH re-issue.
And I, who drive a rusty car from 1986 and have not had a new piece of clothing or shoes since I was teenager and my parents bought these things for me, I who was willing to endure 39 years of shit poverty because I had a dream ----- that one day, this Continuous Music, that needs so much time and work to keep alive, --- this pathetic dream that one day, one lovely day, enough people would care enough for this music that they would actually buy an LP or a CD of it, --- I had this really stupid dream that IF enough people would do this, I could live.
This stupid dream is no more.
Those of you who did not want to fork out the price of two pizzas for my Cd-s, you KNEW that there is no other pianist in the world whose fingers and body can create this new piano music ---- and deep inside, if you actually heard this piano music, you KNEW that since only I can not play it now, then NO ONE, ever, ... will be able to play it, (unless someone wants to devote years and years of their life to the difficult training that is needed --- ) then these official CD-s are the only hope for the future of this music.
Your barren MP-3 download with a Maxell or Verbatim stamp will be nothing.
-- and you knew that in stealing these CD-s, you were killing this delicate young sapling of a tree that was struggling to reach the light.
You created that sticky black cloud that blocked the sunlight from this young struggling tree. You might tell yourself, that "I really didn't know" --- but really, you did !
You just didn't want to pay the price of a couple of pizzas.
I want to thank those few people in this world who actually bought a CD of my work. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for not stealing it --- the way the others have done. Thank you for supporting this music and my work. For you, I will talk with BANDURA and see if we can do something special, just for you.
And those of you who did steal the CD-s over internet, or took a copy from your friend, you might have the moral courage to send at least ten bucks to BANDURA or , if you stole KMH, then to UNSEEN WORLDS --- or maybe just buy a CD !! to give away as a present for your library....
This is now all in your hands. Because the way things stand with the free downloading,
there will be no new Continuous Music issued ... I can not make any more CD-s.
--- Because each of you dowloaders banged your own personalized nail into the coffin of this beautiful music.
And not just my music and work, but the work of hundreds of other composers and musicians all over the world.
Lubomyr Melnyk
August, 2009
Friday, 7 August 2009
JIM DENLEY & KIM MYHR – System Realignment
Either/OAR
If a single record, among the latest batches received, could symbolize this writer’s current partiality for a legitimate exploration in a studio setting, as opposed to the release of an all-inclusive unsatisfying live performance, this should be it. Jim Denley (alto sax, flute, electronics) and Kim Myhr (acoustic guitar and “simple mechanics”) are captured in ten tracks in which the overindulgence and the posturing often associable to present-day improvisation are replaced by a simple concept - regularly and conveniently forgotten nowadays to grant undeserved glory to nonentities defining themselves as “artists” in the name of a corrupted democracy of expression - called musicality. A lovely feeling materializing as soon as you press “play”, quite relieving to experience after having spent months squeezing our instinctive refusal of intellectually tinged rubbish to obtain two or three logical drops, indispensable for a decent write-up, matching the two or three isolated noises around which that drivel is usually built.
There is in fact evidence, since the very beginning of this program, of an unambiguous alchemy at work. One immediately breathes consistency while listening to the popping-and-fizzing emissions of the reeds in parallel with the fundamental constituents of the guitar, whose wood we can almost smell the essence of, thanks to the detailed quality of the recording. On a first glance, the homogeneity demonstrated by the couple throughout might be exchanged for a lack of inventiveness, but this is totally untrue. There’s much to be found in terms of colour and resonance in this non-stylish, non-regional exploitation of the entire attributes of instruments apparently so dissimilar, an agglutinate generating effects that are manifestly beneficial, pushing the ears towards a type of perception which ideally should be linked to a direct experience in a remote land (Denley is an expert of this field of action). This is probably due to the musicians’ preference for the percussive features of their playing, which rather frequently reveal a quasi-African aroma (incredible how Myhr manages to make that machine sound like a mbira time and again). Yet sticking a pseudo-world music tag to this duet would be a gross misinterpretation of something more profound, both in the crucial meanings and in regard to the analytical capacity of the instrumentalists, always in the condition of eliciting captivating aural tints in dialogues that never appear as previously rehearsed.
A mind-opening paradigm of mutual recognition and acute attention to the communication between interacting entities, System Realignment is another example of Dale Lloyd’s discernment in choosing materials to publish on his labels, regardless of genres and expectations.
If a single record, among the latest batches received, could symbolize this writer’s current partiality for a legitimate exploration in a studio setting, as opposed to the release of an all-inclusive unsatisfying live performance, this should be it. Jim Denley (alto sax, flute, electronics) and Kim Myhr (acoustic guitar and “simple mechanics”) are captured in ten tracks in which the overindulgence and the posturing often associable to present-day improvisation are replaced by a simple concept - regularly and conveniently forgotten nowadays to grant undeserved glory to nonentities defining themselves as “artists” in the name of a corrupted democracy of expression - called musicality. A lovely feeling materializing as soon as you press “play”, quite relieving to experience after having spent months squeezing our instinctive refusal of intellectually tinged rubbish to obtain two or three logical drops, indispensable for a decent write-up, matching the two or three isolated noises around which that drivel is usually built.
There is in fact evidence, since the very beginning of this program, of an unambiguous alchemy at work. One immediately breathes consistency while listening to the popping-and-fizzing emissions of the reeds in parallel with the fundamental constituents of the guitar, whose wood we can almost smell the essence of, thanks to the detailed quality of the recording. On a first glance, the homogeneity demonstrated by the couple throughout might be exchanged for a lack of inventiveness, but this is totally untrue. There’s much to be found in terms of colour and resonance in this non-stylish, non-regional exploitation of the entire attributes of instruments apparently so dissimilar, an agglutinate generating effects that are manifestly beneficial, pushing the ears towards a type of perception which ideally should be linked to a direct experience in a remote land (Denley is an expert of this field of action). This is probably due to the musicians’ preference for the percussive features of their playing, which rather frequently reveal a quasi-African aroma (incredible how Myhr manages to make that machine sound like a mbira time and again). Yet sticking a pseudo-world music tag to this duet would be a gross misinterpretation of something more profound, both in the crucial meanings and in regard to the analytical capacity of the instrumentalists, always in the condition of eliciting captivating aural tints in dialogues that never appear as previously rehearsed.
A mind-opening paradigm of mutual recognition and acute attention to the communication between interacting entities, System Realignment is another example of Dale Lloyd’s discernment in choosing materials to publish on his labels, regardless of genres and expectations.
Thursday, 6 August 2009
DROPP ENSEMBLE – Safety
Either/OAR
Over the 2006/2007 biennium Salvatore “Sam” Dellaria and Adam Sonderberg gathered and assembled recordings from a literal who’s who of inquisitive improvisers and composers, mostly from the advanced areas of EAI (names include Olivia Block, Jason Kahn, Tomas Korber, Eric Lanzillotta, Jon Mueller, Brendan Walls, Christian Weber to quote the most “famous”). The results are now available in 32 minutes for which adjectives like “stunning”, “mesmeric” and “anguishing” weigh equally.
In a milieu of partially tarnished harmonic contents, the prevailing impression is that there’s no way out of an unending obscurity. Sounds apparently coming from the viscera of the instruments take possession of the immediate environment straight away, causing a sense of uneasiness enhanced by the absolute lack of resolutions or, worse still for someone, sections to memorize. Everywhere – except perhaps the short opening track “Inlet” - a sort of gradual deterioration of the mood constitutes a prominent compositional trait, providing a necessary dose of slight precariousness which prevents the music to become just a flabby superimposition of disjointed elements.
Every detail appears carefully planned and executed, and the splendid stability between electronic and acoustic factors, connecting softness (say, a rhythmic low-frequency pulse as heard at the end of “Everywhere Present And Nowhere Visible”) and ruggedness (Jon Mueller’s instantly recognizable stridencies, for example), pushes aural exhausts and concrete threats in the same direction, a grey sky anticipating rainstorms that never begin. The overall scent of this record is therefore an organic one: we felt both swallowed up and authorized to pensive movement, needing to walk across the room while listening, hoarse murmurs and percussive parsimony marvellously mixing with the tinkling bells of the cows pasturing around the house, the abnormal pulsation of particular sound waves determining a sensible modification of the pressure on the membranes.
This meshing of mixed-media experimentalism and unvarnished ineluctability is a winning procedure throughout, attributing to Safety – the title a bizarre counter altar to such a non-serene, if introspective offering – a psychological influence which is typical of an album to remember for years to come.
Over the 2006/2007 biennium Salvatore “Sam” Dellaria and Adam Sonderberg gathered and assembled recordings from a literal who’s who of inquisitive improvisers and composers, mostly from the advanced areas of EAI (names include Olivia Block, Jason Kahn, Tomas Korber, Eric Lanzillotta, Jon Mueller, Brendan Walls, Christian Weber to quote the most “famous”). The results are now available in 32 minutes for which adjectives like “stunning”, “mesmeric” and “anguishing” weigh equally.
In a milieu of partially tarnished harmonic contents, the prevailing impression is that there’s no way out of an unending obscurity. Sounds apparently coming from the viscera of the instruments take possession of the immediate environment straight away, causing a sense of uneasiness enhanced by the absolute lack of resolutions or, worse still for someone, sections to memorize. Everywhere – except perhaps the short opening track “Inlet” - a sort of gradual deterioration of the mood constitutes a prominent compositional trait, providing a necessary dose of slight precariousness which prevents the music to become just a flabby superimposition of disjointed elements.
Every detail appears carefully planned and executed, and the splendid stability between electronic and acoustic factors, connecting softness (say, a rhythmic low-frequency pulse as heard at the end of “Everywhere Present And Nowhere Visible”) and ruggedness (Jon Mueller’s instantly recognizable stridencies, for example), pushes aural exhausts and concrete threats in the same direction, a grey sky anticipating rainstorms that never begin. The overall scent of this record is therefore an organic one: we felt both swallowed up and authorized to pensive movement, needing to walk across the room while listening, hoarse murmurs and percussive parsimony marvellously mixing with the tinkling bells of the cows pasturing around the house, the abnormal pulsation of particular sound waves determining a sensible modification of the pressure on the membranes.
This meshing of mixed-media experimentalism and unvarnished ineluctability is a winning procedure throughout, attributing to Safety – the title a bizarre counter altar to such a non-serene, if introspective offering – a psychological influence which is typical of an album to remember for years to come.
Wednesday, 5 August 2009
JUAN JOSÉ CALARCO – Dársena Interna
Mystery Sea
Argentinean Calarco, previously met by yours truly on a 3-inch by the late The Locus Of Assemblage imprint and a collaborator of people such as Ubeboet and Pablo Reche, composed Dársena Interna entirely through the seaming and processing of metropolitan field recordings, thus creating an engulfing soundscape imbued of rumbles, undercurrents and from-the-underground reverberations.
Naturally we have encountered this variety of substances a thousand times before, but given the circumstance I don’t feel like disparaging the effort; it takes a degree of good judgment to pull this type of material together without making the outcome sound totally worn-out. Providentially, in this case the designer succeeded, in all probability because the essential sources are collected and exposed “as they are”, minus excessive intellectual mannerism or veiled implications. In a couple of occasions, distant echoing washes caused the recollection of personal memories of nocturnal insomnia imprinted by the remote roaring of passing trains, a chronic presence during adolescent ruminations over the course of many summers.
If you give up looking for the “unforgettable masterwork” for a moment this CD makes for pleasurable company, perhaps best enjoyed as a background soundtrack for semi-lucid considerations about the contingent aspects of existence. Whirr, hum, whoosh, thud. We all know how it goes. Still, this particular offering sounds as a honest job.
Argentinean Calarco, previously met by yours truly on a 3-inch by the late The Locus Of Assemblage imprint and a collaborator of people such as Ubeboet and Pablo Reche, composed Dársena Interna entirely through the seaming and processing of metropolitan field recordings, thus creating an engulfing soundscape imbued of rumbles, undercurrents and from-the-underground reverberations.
Naturally we have encountered this variety of substances a thousand times before, but given the circumstance I don’t feel like disparaging the effort; it takes a degree of good judgment to pull this type of material together without making the outcome sound totally worn-out. Providentially, in this case the designer succeeded, in all probability because the essential sources are collected and exposed “as they are”, minus excessive intellectual mannerism or veiled implications. In a couple of occasions, distant echoing washes caused the recollection of personal memories of nocturnal insomnia imprinted by the remote roaring of passing trains, a chronic presence during adolescent ruminations over the course of many summers.
If you give up looking for the “unforgettable masterwork” for a moment this CD makes for pleasurable company, perhaps best enjoyed as a background soundtrack for semi-lucid considerations about the contingent aspects of existence. Whirr, hum, whoosh, thud. We all know how it goes. Still, this particular offering sounds as a honest job.
Thursday, 30 July 2009
FRANK ROTHKAMM – Frank Genius Is Star Struck
Flux
The master of anticipation-dodging eccentricity, Frank Rothkamm renders our summer happier with a “digital cantata” composed over the 1990-91 biennium on machines that many oh-so-modern whiz kids would consider as relics: Yamaha TX16W sampler and TX81Z plus FB01 synthesizers, Atari STE computer. The ultimate punch is given by the composer’s record collection, which furnished snippets of famous (and less) voices and songs: apart from a few segments of classical music – Tchaikowskij’s The Nutcracker is not bad as a disco hook – we find unintentional cameos by Nico, David Bowie and what I perceived as an Edith Piaf/Mireille Mathieu duet in “La Vie” – yet with this genre-orphan, chivalrous studio fiend one is never sure.
The program lasts about half a hour, enough to call the timing just right. It is indeed very useful for early morning disco-based aerobic exercises (ask my wife, who instantly started shaking her butt as soon as the second track began). The near-perfection of these juxtapositions results in something that sounds impolitic and punctilious at once, gifted with the classic ironic touch that this artist is renowned for. For good measure he transcribed what the sampled people actually say, the lyrics possessing an absurdly effective way of penetrating the listener’s brain while intent in being inundated by the now-licentious, now-beatific qualities of rhythmic combinations spiced with references that go from Elvis to pornography. The superb “Interlude For Soprano And Piano” – all of its 32 seconds – is the culmination point of a release whose cleverness transpires unmistakably, even after almost 20 years from its first conception.
Rothkamm calls this an “algorithmically re-synthesized ambrosia of popular music”. Difficult words for a dim-witted mass to understand, maybe – but play the CD and impediments will immediately be forgotten. Give yourselves a couple of good, hard spins and you’re going to sens la vie.
The master of anticipation-dodging eccentricity, Frank Rothkamm renders our summer happier with a “digital cantata” composed over the 1990-91 biennium on machines that many oh-so-modern whiz kids would consider as relics: Yamaha TX16W sampler and TX81Z plus FB01 synthesizers, Atari STE computer. The ultimate punch is given by the composer’s record collection, which furnished snippets of famous (and less) voices and songs: apart from a few segments of classical music – Tchaikowskij’s The Nutcracker is not bad as a disco hook – we find unintentional cameos by Nico, David Bowie and what I perceived as an Edith Piaf/Mireille Mathieu duet in “La Vie” – yet with this genre-orphan, chivalrous studio fiend one is never sure.
The program lasts about half a hour, enough to call the timing just right. It is indeed very useful for early morning disco-based aerobic exercises (ask my wife, who instantly started shaking her butt as soon as the second track began). The near-perfection of these juxtapositions results in something that sounds impolitic and punctilious at once, gifted with the classic ironic touch that this artist is renowned for. For good measure he transcribed what the sampled people actually say, the lyrics possessing an absurdly effective way of penetrating the listener’s brain while intent in being inundated by the now-licentious, now-beatific qualities of rhythmic combinations spiced with references that go from Elvis to pornography. The superb “Interlude For Soprano And Piano” – all of its 32 seconds – is the culmination point of a release whose cleverness transpires unmistakably, even after almost 20 years from its first conception.
Rothkamm calls this an “algorithmically re-synthesized ambrosia of popular music”. Difficult words for a dim-witted mass to understand, maybe – but play the CD and impediments will immediately be forgotten. Give yourselves a couple of good, hard spins and you’re going to sens la vie.
Wednesday, 22 July 2009
KEITH ROWE / TAKU UNAMI – ErstLive 006
Erstwhile
The AMPLIFY 2008: Light festival produced two noteworthy performances involving Keith Rowe. The solo act - released by this same label with the title ErstLive 007 - features one of the Englishman’s best efforts in the last decade, a jam-packing of implications and details (the author’s review can be found here) that has deservedly elicited a measure of debate. ErstLive 006 is the companion release and – although not accomplishing an equivalent level of emotional strength, is in any case a rewarding album.
Besides mistreating his customary table-top Steinberger with all sorts of manual and electric tools, Rowe generates and manipulates electronics via a Macintosh notebook; Unami is also seen handling a laptop (“computer with objects”) and, additionally, utilizes contraguitar and mandolin. If this suggests the incidence of regular sounds of stringed instruments in the piece, think again: the moments in which single plucks and “normal” harmonics appear are indeed infrequent, especially occurring in the second half. The dominating presence is instead that of recurring clicking pulses at variable speed that the couple uses as a sort of leitmotiv throughout; I am not really convinced that this comes from one or more metronomes, but the aural picture gets close. At first the music is informed by long pauses, extremely minimal activities leaving room to infiltrations from the external environment (the set was recorded at Tokyo’s Kid Ailack Art Hall). As the minutes elapse, the infinitesimal dynamics of the repetitive clicks gradually introduce a developed instrumental strategy, the timbres growing harsher over diverse combinations of computerized action and scraping/bouncing diffusions featuring several among the techniques that we’ve come to know and appreciate from these artists. The conclusive section increases the textural tapestry’s mass, individuating a considerable peak in an otherwise pretty tranquil, if ever-active performance, a much appreciated suggestion of escalating nervousness that aptly seals the closure.
The recommendation is to listen to both CDs –006 and 007 – comparatively to get an idea of what Rowe managed to cook for this particular occasion. But let’s not forget to give credit to Unami, his figure unquestionably relevant to help swerving the events from potential standardization, always a concrete risk in this form of exchange. This time, the traps have been cunningly eluded.
The AMPLIFY 2008: Light festival produced two noteworthy performances involving Keith Rowe. The solo act - released by this same label with the title ErstLive 007 - features one of the Englishman’s best efforts in the last decade, a jam-packing of implications and details (the author’s review can be found here) that has deservedly elicited a measure of debate. ErstLive 006 is the companion release and – although not accomplishing an equivalent level of emotional strength, is in any case a rewarding album.
Besides mistreating his customary table-top Steinberger with all sorts of manual and electric tools, Rowe generates and manipulates electronics via a Macintosh notebook; Unami is also seen handling a laptop (“computer with objects”) and, additionally, utilizes contraguitar and mandolin. If this suggests the incidence of regular sounds of stringed instruments in the piece, think again: the moments in which single plucks and “normal” harmonics appear are indeed infrequent, especially occurring in the second half. The dominating presence is instead that of recurring clicking pulses at variable speed that the couple uses as a sort of leitmotiv throughout; I am not really convinced that this comes from one or more metronomes, but the aural picture gets close. At first the music is informed by long pauses, extremely minimal activities leaving room to infiltrations from the external environment (the set was recorded at Tokyo’s Kid Ailack Art Hall). As the minutes elapse, the infinitesimal dynamics of the repetitive clicks gradually introduce a developed instrumental strategy, the timbres growing harsher over diverse combinations of computerized action and scraping/bouncing diffusions featuring several among the techniques that we’ve come to know and appreciate from these artists. The conclusive section increases the textural tapestry’s mass, individuating a considerable peak in an otherwise pretty tranquil, if ever-active performance, a much appreciated suggestion of escalating nervousness that aptly seals the closure.
The recommendation is to listen to both CDs –006 and 007 – comparatively to get an idea of what Rowe managed to cook for this particular occasion. But let’s not forget to give credit to Unami, his figure unquestionably relevant to help swerving the events from potential standardization, always a concrete risk in this form of exchange. This time, the traps have been cunningly eluded.
Friday, 17 July 2009
SETH NEHIL – Flock & Tumble
Sonoris
Seth Nehil promotes the furtherance of wrinkled soundscapes and unadulterated emotions amidst the difficult-to-admit homogenization of consistent chunks of presumed avant-gardes, which recur to limp certainties after their name is established and the funds are granted for new “adventures”.
The audio imagery comprised by Flock And Tumble is certainly not easy to decipher: it juxtaposes various proportions, meshing physical expressiveness and studio-generated propulsion according to methods characterized by an admirable uniqueness. It doesn’t necessarily respect the blueprints of thorough independence, often sounding composed to the tiniest detail, yet its freshness is perceptible even on a first and not excessively attentive listen. But it’s only with a radical incursion in the winding spirals of these sonorities that the work reveals its importance and - in various circumstances - an unpolished, modest radiance.
Take for example the contrast between the use of the voices, which Nehil exploits in unusual fashion having the performers theatrically emitting incomprehensible, almost panic-stricken clusters and sudden disconnections, and the organic qualities of the percussive features, halfway through an on-site installation and the rattling of abandoned objects in a god-forsaken area. Elements that sound remotely isolated, practically unlinked, describe instead a courageous attempt to indicate a different mindset for the listeners, invited to join a multitude of signals whose impoverished semblance does not detract from their psychological weight. The disorientation is partially amended by the less “active” sections, where everything gets levelled by electronic or heavily processed sounds that lead us across the recondite aspects of sonic disrepair, all the while maintaining a fundamental essence of artistic incorruptibility.
An important demonstration of Nehil’s abilities, this is a classic sleeper which deserves immediate exposure, well beyond the small circle of experts to which music like this is usually addressed.
Seth Nehil promotes the furtherance of wrinkled soundscapes and unadulterated emotions amidst the difficult-to-admit homogenization of consistent chunks of presumed avant-gardes, which recur to limp certainties after their name is established and the funds are granted for new “adventures”.
The audio imagery comprised by Flock And Tumble is certainly not easy to decipher: it juxtaposes various proportions, meshing physical expressiveness and studio-generated propulsion according to methods characterized by an admirable uniqueness. It doesn’t necessarily respect the blueprints of thorough independence, often sounding composed to the tiniest detail, yet its freshness is perceptible even on a first and not excessively attentive listen. But it’s only with a radical incursion in the winding spirals of these sonorities that the work reveals its importance and - in various circumstances - an unpolished, modest radiance.
Take for example the contrast between the use of the voices, which Nehil exploits in unusual fashion having the performers theatrically emitting incomprehensible, almost panic-stricken clusters and sudden disconnections, and the organic qualities of the percussive features, halfway through an on-site installation and the rattling of abandoned objects in a god-forsaken area. Elements that sound remotely isolated, practically unlinked, describe instead a courageous attempt to indicate a different mindset for the listeners, invited to join a multitude of signals whose impoverished semblance does not detract from their psychological weight. The disorientation is partially amended by the less “active” sections, where everything gets levelled by electronic or heavily processed sounds that lead us across the recondite aspects of sonic disrepair, all the while maintaining a fundamental essence of artistic incorruptibility.
An important demonstration of Nehil’s abilities, this is a classic sleeper which deserves immediate exposure, well beyond the small circle of experts to which music like this is usually addressed.
Thursday, 16 July 2009
JASON KAHN – Vanishing Point
23Five
An artist mostly renowned for the restrained tones of his music, Jason Kahn is also able to introduce those nearly imperceptible gradations in situations where overshadowing heaps of sonic layers determine the practical impossibility of looking for alternative courses of analysis for those who listen.
Vanishing Point is a proposition generated by the combination of live and studio materials in which we individuate three different phases, initially characterized by the virtual absence of Kahn’s exemplarily elusive nuances and intangible decays. The opening is in fact an abrupt in-your-face declaration of discomfort, a wall of coarse noise and short waves that only after a while allows to spot something under the blur, the percussive arsenal gradually finding its way towards the midpoint of our consideration. Circa 18 minutes in, this somewhat aggressive avalanche disappears to reveal more of the structures created by the composer, mainly via rolling/roaring drums and cymbals together with lots of supplementary insertions, whose intimidating escalation continues for protracted periods of uneasiness. In certain circumstances one thinks of Jon Mueller, if just for short glimpses.
Yet it’s exactly in this instant that we realize about the staying supremacy and, to some extent, reassuring stability of this accumulation, as the auricular membranes start recognizing a basic code of vibration which permits the acceptance of this controlled brutality in the same manner in which people living in industrial areas become used to the constant din and feel at home in it. The difference lies in the application of hardly measurable shades in the encircling buzzing energy - which is precisely what identifies the composition, attributing a harmonic cryptogram of sorts to what untutored ears might judge as sheer racket. The third and last phase determines the conclusion of the process, the transition from potential confusion to the discernment of weak colours and alterations which were practically impossible to perceive at first. The continuous stifled resonance of a tuned drum, easily mistakable for a gong, accompanies the gradual morphing of the piece into pseudo-quietness during the final stages.
Throughout the conception of this work Kahn thought deeply of his daughter Louise, whose death due to SIDS, at 3 months of age, had occurred not long before. Naturally, the concept of vanishing became extremely important in regard to that sad circumstance. Nevertheless what I see represented almost graphically is the symbolization of the ascension to a superior level, the passage from the infected reality of earthly life to the state of completely uncontaminated being, leaving corporeal impediments behind. Not a disappearance, then: a transformation.
An intense, strong set confirming Kahn among the mainstays in the lands of non-generic artistic expression, Vanishing Point is informed by a sense of responsive acuity and insightful propensity to the emotional expansion of physical phenomena.
An artist mostly renowned for the restrained tones of his music, Jason Kahn is also able to introduce those nearly imperceptible gradations in situations where overshadowing heaps of sonic layers determine the practical impossibility of looking for alternative courses of analysis for those who listen.
Vanishing Point is a proposition generated by the combination of live and studio materials in which we individuate three different phases, initially characterized by the virtual absence of Kahn’s exemplarily elusive nuances and intangible decays. The opening is in fact an abrupt in-your-face declaration of discomfort, a wall of coarse noise and short waves that only after a while allows to spot something under the blur, the percussive arsenal gradually finding its way towards the midpoint of our consideration. Circa 18 minutes in, this somewhat aggressive avalanche disappears to reveal more of the structures created by the composer, mainly via rolling/roaring drums and cymbals together with lots of supplementary insertions, whose intimidating escalation continues for protracted periods of uneasiness. In certain circumstances one thinks of Jon Mueller, if just for short glimpses.
Yet it’s exactly in this instant that we realize about the staying supremacy and, to some extent, reassuring stability of this accumulation, as the auricular membranes start recognizing a basic code of vibration which permits the acceptance of this controlled brutality in the same manner in which people living in industrial areas become used to the constant din and feel at home in it. The difference lies in the application of hardly measurable shades in the encircling buzzing energy - which is precisely what identifies the composition, attributing a harmonic cryptogram of sorts to what untutored ears might judge as sheer racket. The third and last phase determines the conclusion of the process, the transition from potential confusion to the discernment of weak colours and alterations which were practically impossible to perceive at first. The continuous stifled resonance of a tuned drum, easily mistakable for a gong, accompanies the gradual morphing of the piece into pseudo-quietness during the final stages.
Throughout the conception of this work Kahn thought deeply of his daughter Louise, whose death due to SIDS, at 3 months of age, had occurred not long before. Naturally, the concept of vanishing became extremely important in regard to that sad circumstance. Nevertheless what I see represented almost graphically is the symbolization of the ascension to a superior level, the passage from the infected reality of earthly life to the state of completely uncontaminated being, leaving corporeal impediments behind. Not a disappearance, then: a transformation.
An intense, strong set confirming Kahn among the mainstays in the lands of non-generic artistic expression, Vanishing Point is informed by a sense of responsive acuity and insightful propensity to the emotional expansion of physical phenomena.
Saturday, 11 July 2009
STRØM - Shunt
Domizil
Strøm are Gaudenz Badrutt and Christian Müller improvising with bass clarinet, synthesizers and computer in “digital state space”, this being the couple’s first CD on Domizil. The duo works on the basis of several different influences, having lent their talents to theatre, installations and live performance and collaborated with names such as Martin Schütz, Tomas Korber and Jacques Demierre among others.
Shunt is an interesting listen, a rather well-balanced cross of reductionist EAI and radical irritation which does not reveal its depths if not after repeated tries. Agglutinates of extremely cold, harsh sounds verging on the hostile are interspersed with caustically maladjusted electroacoustic spurts and brain-rubbing frequencies whose droning character is not dominant and – in any case – repeatedly destroyed by further icy annoyances. Broken videogame-like irregularities are alternated with subsonic purrs and crunchy ambiguousness, and there’s room for some measure of evolved space ambient, too.
If you like a docile, obedient electronica, you’ve come to the wrong place: this is pure experimentation, scars and intumescences sported by Badrutt and Müller with detached superiority, not caring a iota about an even vague idea of “audience gratification”. Music that lives without nutriment in an unconscious attempt to remove any connection to humanity, at times next to unenthusiastic, often very fascinating. It takes a while to penetrate it, but there’s a measure of reward in there if you’re careful enough, and a whole lot of stimuli for ears and nerves. And recognizing the actual timbre of the instruments requires an eternity.
Strøm are Gaudenz Badrutt and Christian Müller improvising with bass clarinet, synthesizers and computer in “digital state space”, this being the couple’s first CD on Domizil. The duo works on the basis of several different influences, having lent their talents to theatre, installations and live performance and collaborated with names such as Martin Schütz, Tomas Korber and Jacques Demierre among others.
Shunt is an interesting listen, a rather well-balanced cross of reductionist EAI and radical irritation which does not reveal its depths if not after repeated tries. Agglutinates of extremely cold, harsh sounds verging on the hostile are interspersed with caustically maladjusted electroacoustic spurts and brain-rubbing frequencies whose droning character is not dominant and – in any case – repeatedly destroyed by further icy annoyances. Broken videogame-like irregularities are alternated with subsonic purrs and crunchy ambiguousness, and there’s room for some measure of evolved space ambient, too.
If you like a docile, obedient electronica, you’ve come to the wrong place: this is pure experimentation, scars and intumescences sported by Badrutt and Müller with detached superiority, not caring a iota about an even vague idea of “audience gratification”. Music that lives without nutriment in an unconscious attempt to remove any connection to humanity, at times next to unenthusiastic, often very fascinating. It takes a while to penetrate it, but there’s a measure of reward in there if you’re careful enough, and a whole lot of stimuli for ears and nerves. And recognizing the actual timbre of the instruments requires an eternity.
Tuesday, 7 July 2009
BRUCE NOVACK – Multiplicity
Crevice
That endangered species - the sharp-minded piano soloist - is still observable, at least from distance. Is it possible nowadays to present a program of over a hour on this instrument without making it sound soaked by savoir-faire, or recurring to (by now customary) inside-tampering trickery? With Multiplicity, Bruce Novack shows that sense of spacing and exploitation of silence go a long way in delivering music from romantic uselessness and incoherent hullabaloo when it comes to the 88 keys.
Except for “Quantum Wall” - a lengthy tape piece constructed via the superimposition of a number of improvisations which ends sounding like a cross of a humongous Charlemagne Palestine and a tsunami - and the final “Again”, a minute of unidentifiable noises, the tracks show the artist’s will to remain equidistant from the extremes, both in the registers and the movement/stillness ratio, but only after having thoroughly explored them. Novack is a technically solid performer gifted with an abnormal independence of the hands to the point that, when one listens to certain impossible-to-decode runs juxtaposed with apparently disjointed yet rock-hard clusters, believing that we’re in front of a lone doer becomes difficult.
Some pieces also hint to Feldman-related significances, being characterized by extended sections where stasis is even more important than harmonic progress. This is precisely what distances Novack’s work from the mass, as he finds a fine balance between absence and presence while managing to repeatedly educe interest, listeners expecting the subsequent events fully confident in the performer’s sangfroid. You won’t hear neither coquettish nostalgia nor ignorant banging here. Everything seems to fall in its place at the very right moment, chords, flurries and single pitches popping out like mushrooms wherever necessary.
An album for which the expression “momentary infatuation” is pushed aside in favour of a gradual increase of the resolve to comprehend. Elements that are pretty well known get displaced in altered combinations, resulting in unpretentious freshness and commercially unviable mistrusting of blueprints. Whichever side we look at it, brilliant stuff.
That endangered species - the sharp-minded piano soloist - is still observable, at least from distance. Is it possible nowadays to present a program of over a hour on this instrument without making it sound soaked by savoir-faire, or recurring to (by now customary) inside-tampering trickery? With Multiplicity, Bruce Novack shows that sense of spacing and exploitation of silence go a long way in delivering music from romantic uselessness and incoherent hullabaloo when it comes to the 88 keys.
Except for “Quantum Wall” - a lengthy tape piece constructed via the superimposition of a number of improvisations which ends sounding like a cross of a humongous Charlemagne Palestine and a tsunami - and the final “Again”, a minute of unidentifiable noises, the tracks show the artist’s will to remain equidistant from the extremes, both in the registers and the movement/stillness ratio, but only after having thoroughly explored them. Novack is a technically solid performer gifted with an abnormal independence of the hands to the point that, when one listens to certain impossible-to-decode runs juxtaposed with apparently disjointed yet rock-hard clusters, believing that we’re in front of a lone doer becomes difficult.
Some pieces also hint to Feldman-related significances, being characterized by extended sections where stasis is even more important than harmonic progress. This is precisely what distances Novack’s work from the mass, as he finds a fine balance between absence and presence while managing to repeatedly educe interest, listeners expecting the subsequent events fully confident in the performer’s sangfroid. You won’t hear neither coquettish nostalgia nor ignorant banging here. Everything seems to fall in its place at the very right moment, chords, flurries and single pitches popping out like mushrooms wherever necessary.
An album for which the expression “momentary infatuation” is pushed aside in favour of a gradual increase of the resolve to comprehend. Elements that are pretty well known get displaced in altered combinations, resulting in unpretentious freshness and commercially unviable mistrusting of blueprints. Whichever side we look at it, brilliant stuff.
Thursday, 25 June 2009
JOHN BUTCHER / TORSTEN MULLER / DYLAN VAN DER SCHYFF – Way Out Northwest
Drip Audio
Recorded in June 2007 at Vancouver’s Western Front thanks to the organizational acumen of the Coastal Jazz And Blues Society, this act compares the different fantasies and the compatible extravagances of three respected improvisers, captured in six tracks that - although not constituting “one of the most important and satisfying recordings of the early 21st century” (ah, the inimitable excitement of a press-release…) - are without a doubt a fulgent example of lucidity and, why not, clever sense of humour put at the service of instantaneous diversification resulting in excitingly unsullied, literally liberated surges – which, naturally, we’re always in need of.
The performance offered by the trio is authoritative in each of its aspects. As a collective, the music flows with a multitude of dimensions: chirpy fluttering, unconfined exuberance, tight propinquity, scarce obsequiousness. The single instrumentalists shine for their productive impenitency, Butcher alternating brashness and perspicacious intuition through a (customary) total control of the dynamics of overtones, his machine overheating at times, regurgitating remnants of pitch elsewhere. Muller’s bass tone might sound hirsute or preternatural, but not for a moment he appears like a blusterer, playing lines whose cultivated immediateness makes for swift confutation of the instrument’s habitual pleonasms. Van Der Schyff belongs to the group of those percussionists who tend to fragment and partition the basic notion of tempo, altering the natural tendency of an average human organism to follow a regular pulse, euphoria and hypersensitive breeziness materializing from a libertarian despoliation of percussive mendacity. This is the kind of beauty which derives from the poetry of unsuspected occurrence, and – for a change – the often extreme condensation of events is felt as relieving.
Recorded in June 2007 at Vancouver’s Western Front thanks to the organizational acumen of the Coastal Jazz And Blues Society, this act compares the different fantasies and the compatible extravagances of three respected improvisers, captured in six tracks that - although not constituting “one of the most important and satisfying recordings of the early 21st century” (ah, the inimitable excitement of a press-release…) - are without a doubt a fulgent example of lucidity and, why not, clever sense of humour put at the service of instantaneous diversification resulting in excitingly unsullied, literally liberated surges – which, naturally, we’re always in need of.
The performance offered by the trio is authoritative in each of its aspects. As a collective, the music flows with a multitude of dimensions: chirpy fluttering, unconfined exuberance, tight propinquity, scarce obsequiousness. The single instrumentalists shine for their productive impenitency, Butcher alternating brashness and perspicacious intuition through a (customary) total control of the dynamics of overtones, his machine overheating at times, regurgitating remnants of pitch elsewhere. Muller’s bass tone might sound hirsute or preternatural, but not for a moment he appears like a blusterer, playing lines whose cultivated immediateness makes for swift confutation of the instrument’s habitual pleonasms. Van Der Schyff belongs to the group of those percussionists who tend to fragment and partition the basic notion of tempo, altering the natural tendency of an average human organism to follow a regular pulse, euphoria and hypersensitive breeziness materializing from a libertarian despoliation of percussive mendacity. This is the kind of beauty which derives from the poetry of unsuspected occurrence, and – for a change – the often extreme condensation of events is felt as relieving.
Tuesday, 16 June 2009
JEAN-LUC GUIONNET / ERNESTO RODRIGUES / GUILHERME RODRIGUES / SEIJIRO MURAYAMA - Noite
Creative Sources
Bizarrely, it seems that improvising in presence of metropolitan-tinged sonic circumstances can cause factors such as mental strain and edginess to be taken out of the equation, perhaps due to a strange counter-reaction: the noise of a neighbouring street, which ideally should not correspond to a practical background for playing, regularly inspires introspective examinations of space and shapes to certain breeds of musicians. This quartet, whose instrumentation comprises alto sax, viola, cello and percussion, seizes the shadows of a nocturnal view in a neighbourhood by superimposing a collective being to that particular scenario, the outcome captured in an album where active listening is required more than ever.
Both tracks start with the above mentioned inner-city reverberations, as to set the definite context from the beginning. Evidently, the distant air currents generated by the passing vehicles - and the silences between - represent a major inspiration for the players, all of them tending to circumspection and limited motion with just a slight raspy edge in the infrequent percussive implications of the improvisations. The instruments appear in near-spirit, singularly or in different combinations, seldom emerging as a true ensemble. In that sense, a magnificent if too short droning section materializes in the first few minutes of the initial track “Story Board” in one of the record’s most emotionally charged moments, and another – dissonant, yet utterly breathtaking - towards the very end of the disc. Only rarely their voice needs to cry to be heard and, when that occurs, it’s via a series of rapid signals, without a real necessity of “affirmation of personality”. Essentially, the artists succeed in camouflaging themselves in darkness, as marvellously demonstrated by the whispered motionlessness characterizing a long part of “Drama-Like” which starts around the 12th minute.
Throughout Noite we become aware of close relationships and compatibilities springing from the attraction between opposites: instrumental and human, sound and silence, full notes and frail overtones. It takes special ears to individuate the peripheral connections and the invisible-yet-efficient mechanism that allows these artist to relinquish individuality in favour of a hazy picture of rigorousness. Once the mood is established and everything but the nutritious quintessence of this music has been erased from the mind, the first lights of a new day – typically a symbol of recovery after sleeplessness and apprehension - suddenly look undesirable.
Bizarrely, it seems that improvising in presence of metropolitan-tinged sonic circumstances can cause factors such as mental strain and edginess to be taken out of the equation, perhaps due to a strange counter-reaction: the noise of a neighbouring street, which ideally should not correspond to a practical background for playing, regularly inspires introspective examinations of space and shapes to certain breeds of musicians. This quartet, whose instrumentation comprises alto sax, viola, cello and percussion, seizes the shadows of a nocturnal view in a neighbourhood by superimposing a collective being to that particular scenario, the outcome captured in an album where active listening is required more than ever.
Both tracks start with the above mentioned inner-city reverberations, as to set the definite context from the beginning. Evidently, the distant air currents generated by the passing vehicles - and the silences between - represent a major inspiration for the players, all of them tending to circumspection and limited motion with just a slight raspy edge in the infrequent percussive implications of the improvisations. The instruments appear in near-spirit, singularly or in different combinations, seldom emerging as a true ensemble. In that sense, a magnificent if too short droning section materializes in the first few minutes of the initial track “Story Board” in one of the record’s most emotionally charged moments, and another – dissonant, yet utterly breathtaking - towards the very end of the disc. Only rarely their voice needs to cry to be heard and, when that occurs, it’s via a series of rapid signals, without a real necessity of “affirmation of personality”. Essentially, the artists succeed in camouflaging themselves in darkness, as marvellously demonstrated by the whispered motionlessness characterizing a long part of “Drama-Like” which starts around the 12th minute.
Throughout Noite we become aware of close relationships and compatibilities springing from the attraction between opposites: instrumental and human, sound and silence, full notes and frail overtones. It takes special ears to individuate the peripheral connections and the invisible-yet-efficient mechanism that allows these artist to relinquish individuality in favour of a hazy picture of rigorousness. Once the mood is established and everything but the nutritious quintessence of this music has been erased from the mind, the first lights of a new day – typically a symbol of recovery after sleeplessness and apprehension - suddenly look undesirable.
Thursday, 11 June 2009
FRANK GRATKOWSKI / CHRIS BROWN / WILLIAM WINANT – Wake
Red Toucan
Unjustly, Canadian imprint Red Toucan does not receive excessive accolades, most probably due to a low rate of recurrence in their releases, the large part positioned well over the average standards of artistic reliability. It only takes a peep at the label’s catalogue to realize that many stalwarts of modern-day improvisation – Marilyn Crispell to John Butcher, Joëlle Léandre to Vinny Golia – have been recording for Michel Passaretti’s ever-consistent label.
Looking at the participants in Wake is enough to comprehend that this is one of those albums in which there’s no need of sticking tags on something that - borrowing the name of Alfred Harth’s earliest ensemble - is definable as “just music”, executed with commendable balance of fervour and wisdom in unconditional technical superiority. The careers of Gratkowski (clarinet, bass clarinet, alto sax), Winant (vibraphone, percussion) and Brown (piano, live electronics) feature a sort of Gotha in regard to collaborations and commissions, all three having performed works by worldwide known composers and played with the very best in the areas of free music, jazz and contemporary classical. Without throwing hundreds of names, a quick check of the artists’ respective websites tells everything: we’re in presence of jack of all trades and masters of each one of them.
The five tracks of this CD – a rare occasion in which a duration of circa 73 minutes is not perceived as a yoke – enclose a whole host of complicated techniques and instant answers which, if utilized by lesser instrumentalists, would almost resemble a gallery of technically advanced trickery. In “Scrabble”, for example, the trio exploits the toneless sides of their apparatuses marvellously, gradually transforming a jungle of wet pops, lingual abstruseness, light hits and general inharmonic insidiousness into a phraseology bursting with astute superimpositions of concise fragments and diligent anti-embellishments, resembling a downgraded orchestra losing its pieces bit by bit in sublime decadence as the time elapses. In the subsequent piece, the gorgeous “Parallax”, the tension generated by the reticent call-and-response between Winant’s quivering vibes and metals, Gratkowski’s precisely sensitive undertones and Brown’s slightly misshapen perturbations is substantial, the musicians not laying to rest on a defined tonal centre in favour of an irresistible predisposition to well-dressed discomposure.
What separates the contenders from the pretenders is the sense of “on-the-spot composition” that underscores the entire disc. The threesome utilize a “full-acuity” approach, intuitions placed right in the heart of a continuously blossoming interaction where divergent moods, lyrical hesitations and conscious probing symbolize a fusion of purposes which, in the end, sounds like a studied ceremony. The electronic factor is often crucial in gathering the timbres under an umbrella of tactful morphing, the character of the instruments altered exactly as necessary; an ideal measure of pragmatism, which prevents the playing from taking the “gone astray” road to improvisational blankness. The ears get appreciative both for the single voices and the deriving composite textures, a spectacular tidiness constantly visible down to the minute particulars of blowouts that might appear as specialist gibberish at first yet, contrariwise, correspond to rites of passage towards an acoustically balanced, literally enlightened even-handedness.
A thoroughly recommended set worthy of scrupulous investigations: additional qualities will be materializing with every new spin.
Unjustly, Canadian imprint Red Toucan does not receive excessive accolades, most probably due to a low rate of recurrence in their releases, the large part positioned well over the average standards of artistic reliability. It only takes a peep at the label’s catalogue to realize that many stalwarts of modern-day improvisation – Marilyn Crispell to John Butcher, Joëlle Léandre to Vinny Golia – have been recording for Michel Passaretti’s ever-consistent label.
Looking at the participants in Wake is enough to comprehend that this is one of those albums in which there’s no need of sticking tags on something that - borrowing the name of Alfred Harth’s earliest ensemble - is definable as “just music”, executed with commendable balance of fervour and wisdom in unconditional technical superiority. The careers of Gratkowski (clarinet, bass clarinet, alto sax), Winant (vibraphone, percussion) and Brown (piano, live electronics) feature a sort of Gotha in regard to collaborations and commissions, all three having performed works by worldwide known composers and played with the very best in the areas of free music, jazz and contemporary classical. Without throwing hundreds of names, a quick check of the artists’ respective websites tells everything: we’re in presence of jack of all trades and masters of each one of them.
The five tracks of this CD – a rare occasion in which a duration of circa 73 minutes is not perceived as a yoke – enclose a whole host of complicated techniques and instant answers which, if utilized by lesser instrumentalists, would almost resemble a gallery of technically advanced trickery. In “Scrabble”, for example, the trio exploits the toneless sides of their apparatuses marvellously, gradually transforming a jungle of wet pops, lingual abstruseness, light hits and general inharmonic insidiousness into a phraseology bursting with astute superimpositions of concise fragments and diligent anti-embellishments, resembling a downgraded orchestra losing its pieces bit by bit in sublime decadence as the time elapses. In the subsequent piece, the gorgeous “Parallax”, the tension generated by the reticent call-and-response between Winant’s quivering vibes and metals, Gratkowski’s precisely sensitive undertones and Brown’s slightly misshapen perturbations is substantial, the musicians not laying to rest on a defined tonal centre in favour of an irresistible predisposition to well-dressed discomposure.
What separates the contenders from the pretenders is the sense of “on-the-spot composition” that underscores the entire disc. The threesome utilize a “full-acuity” approach, intuitions placed right in the heart of a continuously blossoming interaction where divergent moods, lyrical hesitations and conscious probing symbolize a fusion of purposes which, in the end, sounds like a studied ceremony. The electronic factor is often crucial in gathering the timbres under an umbrella of tactful morphing, the character of the instruments altered exactly as necessary; an ideal measure of pragmatism, which prevents the playing from taking the “gone astray” road to improvisational blankness. The ears get appreciative both for the single voices and the deriving composite textures, a spectacular tidiness constantly visible down to the minute particulars of blowouts that might appear as specialist gibberish at first yet, contrariwise, correspond to rites of passage towards an acoustically balanced, literally enlightened even-handedness.
A thoroughly recommended set worthy of scrupulous investigations: additional qualities will be materializing with every new spin.
Sunday, 7 June 2009
NIKOLAUS GERSZEWSKI – Ordinary Music Vol.3 For String Trio And Double Bass
Creative Sources
Totally mysterious to this purple prose etcher until this morning, the sounds imagined by Nikolaus Gerszewski possess the qualities typical of those produced by time-honoured composers, despite the fact that he started his music-writing activity – as an autodidact - only in 2003, after having worked as a visual artist and writer in previous years. The impulse for this new expressive method, influenced both by the aforesaid experiences and the studying of opuses by John Cage, Cornelius Cardew and Christian Wolff, came in the exact moment in which Gerszewski concentrated on the theory of “ordinary music”, the term implying a continuation of the non-representational features of figurative art in the sonic realm and the participation of trained and untrained musicians to the execution of materials mainly built on the superimposition of “layers, surfaces and objects”, thus privileging the spatial dimension as opposed to the temporal.
The scores are in essence diagrams in which the performers are instructed about what to do, without excessive concern for practice-related aspects – indeed, this piece was not rehearsed at all before its premiere, at Lisbon’s Goethe Institut in the February of 2008. The severe focus and committed empathy shown by the quartet – the composer on violin, Ernesto Rodrigues on viola and metronome, Guilherme Rodrigues on cello and Hernâni Faustino on double bass - makes for over 38 minutes of superbly synchronized improvisation, completely devoid of axioms and clichés yet somehow affirmative in regard to a logical chain of events and ideal meshing of the instrumental tints. Call-and-response phrases are interchanged with instinctively well-placed successions of awe-inspiring glissandos, percussive knocks and scraped tremolos blending in far-from-comfortable counterpoints that, however, emphasize the aura of wholeness that surrounds the players.
The depth of this respect, for the partners and the underlying concept alike, is such that there’s not a note or gesture that appears inconsiderate or, worse, selfish. In virtue of the basic premises, what ‘s heard in this album definitely borders on the extraordinary, Gerszewski’s essential notion notwithstanding.
Totally mysterious to this purple prose etcher until this morning, the sounds imagined by Nikolaus Gerszewski possess the qualities typical of those produced by time-honoured composers, despite the fact that he started his music-writing activity – as an autodidact - only in 2003, after having worked as a visual artist and writer in previous years. The impulse for this new expressive method, influenced both by the aforesaid experiences and the studying of opuses by John Cage, Cornelius Cardew and Christian Wolff, came in the exact moment in which Gerszewski concentrated on the theory of “ordinary music”, the term implying a continuation of the non-representational features of figurative art in the sonic realm and the participation of trained and untrained musicians to the execution of materials mainly built on the superimposition of “layers, surfaces and objects”, thus privileging the spatial dimension as opposed to the temporal.
The scores are in essence diagrams in which the performers are instructed about what to do, without excessive concern for practice-related aspects – indeed, this piece was not rehearsed at all before its premiere, at Lisbon’s Goethe Institut in the February of 2008. The severe focus and committed empathy shown by the quartet – the composer on violin, Ernesto Rodrigues on viola and metronome, Guilherme Rodrigues on cello and Hernâni Faustino on double bass - makes for over 38 minutes of superbly synchronized improvisation, completely devoid of axioms and clichés yet somehow affirmative in regard to a logical chain of events and ideal meshing of the instrumental tints. Call-and-response phrases are interchanged with instinctively well-placed successions of awe-inspiring glissandos, percussive knocks and scraped tremolos blending in far-from-comfortable counterpoints that, however, emphasize the aura of wholeness that surrounds the players.
The depth of this respect, for the partners and the underlying concept alike, is such that there’s not a note or gesture that appears inconsiderate or, worse, selfish. In virtue of the basic premises, what ‘s heard in this album definitely borders on the extraordinary, Gerszewski’s essential notion notwithstanding.
Saturday, 6 June 2009
PAPER WINGS – Ash Field
Black Petal / Pseudoarcana
New Zealand is the land where droning guitars seem to burgeon better than anywhere else in the world, as demonstrated by overlords such as Peter Wright and Rosy Parlane. Another man from that country – Anthony Milton, curator of Pseudoarcana – confirms his advanced position in this sector thanks to this artefact realized in 2005 with fellow guitarist Anthony Guerra (from Australia – the air currents are the same) under the Paper Wings logo. The material was “recorded in a small room on a winter’s day”, yet it launches blazing darts of long-reverb howling distortion with which the men in question inflame and exasperate the notion of nearly motionless wailing, titillating disjointed chords and barely conceivable overtones until they’re transformed in divine violins played with a chainsaw.
If one listens to the record via headphones, the sharp richness deriving from the conflicting upper partials (also enhanced by a slight detuning of some of the strings, supposedly deliberate) will be probably lost, not to mention your hearing. This is music that necessitates to be enjoyed with considerable help from the walls and corners of a large space in order to let tonal butterflies spotted with hundreds of strange colours start fluttering around, overdriven feedback or not. The temperament of the album is informed by a feel of reclusive shyness, in turn symbolized by its harmonic content: saturation a go-go, cleaner arpeggios, nervous strumming, everything Guerra and Milton decide to utilize expresses moods placed halfway through desperate helplessness and celestial providence. It takes a while to acknowledge the unpolished beauty of Ash Field, but once you get to the point it offers plenty of affecting exhalations.
New Zealand is the land where droning guitars seem to burgeon better than anywhere else in the world, as demonstrated by overlords such as Peter Wright and Rosy Parlane. Another man from that country – Anthony Milton, curator of Pseudoarcana – confirms his advanced position in this sector thanks to this artefact realized in 2005 with fellow guitarist Anthony Guerra (from Australia – the air currents are the same) under the Paper Wings logo. The material was “recorded in a small room on a winter’s day”, yet it launches blazing darts of long-reverb howling distortion with which the men in question inflame and exasperate the notion of nearly motionless wailing, titillating disjointed chords and barely conceivable overtones until they’re transformed in divine violins played with a chainsaw.
If one listens to the record via headphones, the sharp richness deriving from the conflicting upper partials (also enhanced by a slight detuning of some of the strings, supposedly deliberate) will be probably lost, not to mention your hearing. This is music that necessitates to be enjoyed with considerable help from the walls and corners of a large space in order to let tonal butterflies spotted with hundreds of strange colours start fluttering around, overdriven feedback or not. The temperament of the album is informed by a feel of reclusive shyness, in turn symbolized by its harmonic content: saturation a go-go, cleaner arpeggios, nervous strumming, everything Guerra and Milton decide to utilize expresses moods placed halfway through desperate helplessness and celestial providence. It takes a while to acknowledge the unpolished beauty of Ash Field, but once you get to the point it offers plenty of affecting exhalations.
Wednesday, 3 June 2009
MEMORIZE THE SKY – In Former Times
Clean Feed
A stunning surprise coming from the Portuguese label in the second half of 2008 is this superb album, interpreted by the trio of Matt Bauder (tenor sax, clarinet), Zach Wallace (double bass) and Aaron Siegel (snare drum, bass drum, vibraphone). Memorize The Sky - a gorgeous name for starters - embody that kind of expressive research halfway through jazz, EAI and minimalism which doesn’t stand in a precise spot yet appears extremely firm in its intentions, not to mention aesthetic implications which, in this particular case, are central enough to place the record in the pantheon of private pleasures for different varieties of listener. What I actually mean is that this substance is addictive in a deeper sense, symbolizing a wisdom that comes from within, on both sides of the performer/audience bond. The artists sound genuinely involved, instinctively linked to something higher; the addressees become active witnesses in the gradual progress of a rite where sounds spring from the intuitive nucleus of being more than the machines which produce them.
When instrumentalists manage to catch splinters of infinity without sounding overly distressed or ambiguously abstruse, that’s already an encouraging sign. With In Former Times three individual entities have reached the ideal balance between an ecstatic vision and the earthly qualities of their tools, privileging the droning aspects of fairly static improvisations which nevertheless are alimented by a continuous, literally incessant movement. Bauder’s reeds sing for the naked spirit of overtone heavenliness, comforting in shuddering instability, searching for bygone energies that are still there to retrieve. Wallace’s arco is often utilized with the tremolo technique, generating an ominous steadiness which will finally unveil the most beautiful reward if only one is trustful of those growling frequencies. Siegel delivers a combination of shamanic intensity and masterful control of the dynamics, never lost in indulgent patterns or equivocal trickery, the trio’s real engine in terms of evocative drive. Inexplicable, thoroughly connecting music which we enjoyed time and again in blissful contentment.
A stunning surprise coming from the Portuguese label in the second half of 2008 is this superb album, interpreted by the trio of Matt Bauder (tenor sax, clarinet), Zach Wallace (double bass) and Aaron Siegel (snare drum, bass drum, vibraphone). Memorize The Sky - a gorgeous name for starters - embody that kind of expressive research halfway through jazz, EAI and minimalism which doesn’t stand in a precise spot yet appears extremely firm in its intentions, not to mention aesthetic implications which, in this particular case, are central enough to place the record in the pantheon of private pleasures for different varieties of listener. What I actually mean is that this substance is addictive in a deeper sense, symbolizing a wisdom that comes from within, on both sides of the performer/audience bond. The artists sound genuinely involved, instinctively linked to something higher; the addressees become active witnesses in the gradual progress of a rite where sounds spring from the intuitive nucleus of being more than the machines which produce them.
When instrumentalists manage to catch splinters of infinity without sounding overly distressed or ambiguously abstruse, that’s already an encouraging sign. With In Former Times three individual entities have reached the ideal balance between an ecstatic vision and the earthly qualities of their tools, privileging the droning aspects of fairly static improvisations which nevertheless are alimented by a continuous, literally incessant movement. Bauder’s reeds sing for the naked spirit of overtone heavenliness, comforting in shuddering instability, searching for bygone energies that are still there to retrieve. Wallace’s arco is often utilized with the tremolo technique, generating an ominous steadiness which will finally unveil the most beautiful reward if only one is trustful of those growling frequencies. Siegel delivers a combination of shamanic intensity and masterful control of the dynamics, never lost in indulgent patterns or equivocal trickery, the trio’s real engine in terms of evocative drive. Inexplicable, thoroughly connecting music which we enjoyed time and again in blissful contentment.
Wednesday, 27 May 2009
ARC – The Pursuit Of Happiness
Emanem
The trio of Sylvia Hallett (violin & electronics, voice), Danny Kingshill (cello, voice) and Gus Garside (double bass & electronics), Arc were born in 1988 but only in this, their third album, chose to use additional enhancements as the previous two releases - 1992’s Remembering on Uneasy Listening and 1993’s Out Of Amber on Slam – were completely acoustic, then as now exploring the “collective language that draws on the European textures of the violin family”. Every operation and (more or less premeditated) occurrence that this recording introduces appears to have been seriously considered: there’s no question about an almost total lack of light-heartedness and joviality in favour of something that echoes the creative uncertainties (typically leading to great discoveries) and the limitlessness of the field of research probed by three artists who sound like participating in a first meeting, in a positive sense.
Even in absence of excessive smiling the record manages to steer well clear of pretentiousness and intellectual obesity. The musicians’ complete adherence to a credo of darkish melodic elongations and textural proficiency, the extensive treatments of the material with classy instrumental dignity – no preparations really detectable, just the uncontaminated tones of the whole gamut of bowed strings vibrating – are enough to establish an atmosphere whose severity is counterbalanced by the diverse contrapuntal permutations that these improvisations show. Hallett, Kingshill and Garside are concentrated yet never self-centred, the see-through quality of the final result the perfect evidence of a honest attitude, a will to accept any consequence for what they decide to play. This is beautifully speckled music that can’t be possibly approached without razor-sharp attentiveness: you must follow its uncertain lines, evaporating contradictions, corpulent resonances and dissonant flights while getting rid of the presumption of having understood the mechanics at work. Only through this method one realizes how handsome these creations are.
The trio of Sylvia Hallett (violin & electronics, voice), Danny Kingshill (cello, voice) and Gus Garside (double bass & electronics), Arc were born in 1988 but only in this, their third album, chose to use additional enhancements as the previous two releases - 1992’s Remembering on Uneasy Listening and 1993’s Out Of Amber on Slam – were completely acoustic, then as now exploring the “collective language that draws on the European textures of the violin family”. Every operation and (more or less premeditated) occurrence that this recording introduces appears to have been seriously considered: there’s no question about an almost total lack of light-heartedness and joviality in favour of something that echoes the creative uncertainties (typically leading to great discoveries) and the limitlessness of the field of research probed by three artists who sound like participating in a first meeting, in a positive sense.
Even in absence of excessive smiling the record manages to steer well clear of pretentiousness and intellectual obesity. The musicians’ complete adherence to a credo of darkish melodic elongations and textural proficiency, the extensive treatments of the material with classy instrumental dignity – no preparations really detectable, just the uncontaminated tones of the whole gamut of bowed strings vibrating – are enough to establish an atmosphere whose severity is counterbalanced by the diverse contrapuntal permutations that these improvisations show. Hallett, Kingshill and Garside are concentrated yet never self-centred, the see-through quality of the final result the perfect evidence of a honest attitude, a will to accept any consequence for what they decide to play. This is beautifully speckled music that can’t be possibly approached without razor-sharp attentiveness: you must follow its uncertain lines, evaporating contradictions, corpulent resonances and dissonant flights while getting rid of the presumption of having understood the mechanics at work. Only through this method one realizes how handsome these creations are.
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