A typical Sunday afternoon of an inclement January. It’s cold, last night it snowed; now it has melted, the sunrays struggling to filter through the clouds. Ever since this reviewer was a young kid, these end-of-the-weekend afternoons – especially when associated to certain albums - never fail to introduce a feel of inescapable, indefinable sadness, a cross between missing something gone forever and the anguish deriving from the prospect of a school test – or similar adolescent “threats” – on Monday morning. What does this have to do with this CD? I couldn’t really say, but the acoustic echoes and the influential moods evoked by this multi-faceted gathering by Torsten Papenheim are permeated by the same kind of mild dejection. It’s music that doesn’t affirm; it rather whispers and suggests. Images, ideas, sensations, fragments from other people’s lives or from our past, the latter’s memories becoming painful to recall as we get older. All clearly visible, sometimes a little disconnected, elsewhere immediately recognizable by the mechanisms of recollection.
The work’s fragmentariness depends on its conceptual nature. Besides the composer, the involved performers are Dave Bennett, Christian Biegai, Christian Marien, Derek Shirley, Michael Thieke, Gerhard Uebele, Merle Bennett, Axel Haller, Matthias Müller, Roland Spieth, Clayton Thomas and Ute Völker. The orchestration features almost every type of instrumental voice - brass and reeds, keyboards, percussion, guitar, bass, plus an accordion and a banjo. The participants were asked to chip in separately, without actually knowing what was occurring on a compositional level. To this accrual of contributions by single musicians or small groups, Papenheim and Dave Bennett added their subsequent manipulations in the studio, defining the outcome with a mixture of semi-coherence and concrete interference (radio and field recordings, peculiarly deviating buzzes and hums) that perfectly frames the volatility of what’s unclassifiable.
Sloped reed melodies and gently discordant arpeggios are masked as a romantic soundtrack to a lovely promenade along the shores of sonic contamination. Still, the music does not take any definite side. There’s a bit of everything: skewed jazz, minimal repetition, improvisation, pianistic melancholy, RIO hues (in particular, I was recalled of Aqsak Maboul in various instants), even a whiff of Biota. The final “All The Songs You Sing” resembles a lo-fi transformation of a morsel of classic into a Charlemagne Palestine-like drone, barely rippled by a soft drumming activity. You may not exclaim “Papenheim” on a first listen, but right after the second one the record’s unique temperament is identifiable. Successive spins just add to this weird sense of gratification imbued with dolefulness.
The advice is leaving the door of consciousness ajar for a series of vague remembrances: among the misty vistas of this tiny world, components that fit your emotional response are probably going to be found somewhere. Hesitant smiles, deep sighs and intelligent restraint. That’s what this release is all about.
Schraum
Sunday, 31 January 2010
Saturday, 30 January 2010
COR FUHLER / JIM O’ROURKE – F-O’R
Recorded in 2000 at Chicago’s Empty Bottle Festival, not only this CDR constitutes an oddity for O’Rourke zealots but it is also a very appealing chapter of remarkably fresh-sounding instantaneous interaction – ten years ago, remember. That said, it’s a shame that F-O’R can’t be brought to a wider attention, or at least beyond the extremely limited number of copies typical of each Conundrom release, as it surely contains some of the best improvised substance heard from both artists.
Fuhler is active on piano, EMS Putney (a synthesizer so called, I believe, as a homage to JO’R passion for Robert Downey Sr.'s film Putney Swope), crackle box and keyolin. O’Rourke plays instead organ, EMS Synthi A, computer and effects. The first part of the set sees the couple in “nonfigurative exploration” mode, never cramped within a scheme or limited by a definite consecutiveness of events. Acoustic shades and noise, mixed with expertise and sense of humour; the insides of the piano and the dirtiest kind of processing seem to work wonders throughout. The central section is frequently informed by the keyolin’s personality, the music occasionally resembling a blend of East-Asian reminiscence and unconstitutional disruption of genres (got to dig those splintered drum’n’bass patterns appearing along dissonant whirlwinds of strings).
After more un-muzzled sputtering turpitude the whole calms down consistently, as a (computerized? eBowed?) long-string Prana start warming the ears amidst additional subdued tampering, the scene instantly becoming one of unclouded concentration underlined by the usual array of tiny interferences. The bizarre resonances elicited by the duo through looped arpeggios and suggestive synthetic oscillations – about 14 minutes into the second track - demarcate my favourite moment of the disc. Whimsicality is the keyword, though, and following a few spurts of plain-spoken chordal fragments surrounded by strange bleeping codes and unremorseful organ ejections, the record ends with poignant particles typified by the appearance of basic essences that would end characterizing O’Rourke’s I’m Happy, And I’m Singing, And A 1,2,3,4. Still, threatening roars keep lurking in the background until conclusion.
(Conundrom, via ErstDist)
Fuhler is active on piano, EMS Putney (a synthesizer so called, I believe, as a homage to JO’R passion for Robert Downey Sr.'s film Putney Swope), crackle box and keyolin. O’Rourke plays instead organ, EMS Synthi A, computer and effects. The first part of the set sees the couple in “nonfigurative exploration” mode, never cramped within a scheme or limited by a definite consecutiveness of events. Acoustic shades and noise, mixed with expertise and sense of humour; the insides of the piano and the dirtiest kind of processing seem to work wonders throughout. The central section is frequently informed by the keyolin’s personality, the music occasionally resembling a blend of East-Asian reminiscence and unconstitutional disruption of genres (got to dig those splintered drum’n’bass patterns appearing along dissonant whirlwinds of strings).
After more un-muzzled sputtering turpitude the whole calms down consistently, as a (computerized? eBowed?) long-string Prana start warming the ears amidst additional subdued tampering, the scene instantly becoming one of unclouded concentration underlined by the usual array of tiny interferences. The bizarre resonances elicited by the duo through looped arpeggios and suggestive synthetic oscillations – about 14 minutes into the second track - demarcate my favourite moment of the disc. Whimsicality is the keyword, though, and following a few spurts of plain-spoken chordal fragments surrounded by strange bleeping codes and unremorseful organ ejections, the record ends with poignant particles typified by the appearance of basic essences that would end characterizing O’Rourke’s I’m Happy, And I’m Singing, And A 1,2,3,4. Still, threatening roars keep lurking in the background until conclusion.
(Conundrom, via ErstDist)
Wednesday, 20 January 2010
CAROL ROBINSON – Billows
After having listened to combinations of frequencies that instantly make sense, connecting with a different order of priorities without apparently altering what was already working, the urge of telling about the experience to someone who can understand becomes stronger. Such is the case of Billows, the debut CD as a composer of clarinettist Carol Robinson, until now principally present in this reviewer’s memory as a regular performer of Phill Niblock’s scores. Let’s be perfectly clear from the start: this album is an instant addition to the “get-a-copy-soon” list, in the hope that it is just the beginning of a path that looks pre-established, with a definite aim.
Robinson is deeply linked with the conceptions of Giacinto Scelsi, who offered a veritable authentication of her thinking of music (“an opening toward something beyond our reality”). However, among the influences declared by this Paris-based American artist, the winds of South Dakota - where she lived as a young girl - represent the most important. Indeed Billows resonates splendidly exactly for its correspondence to the “composite minimalism” of this natural phenomenon. Gently intertwining, caressing breezes on the skin while standing in contemplation under a warm sun, no urban or human presence, only the listener and the cosmos at large. This is what a sensitive subject will probably wish when inhaling this music, possibly alone, in full quietness. Entirely linear or slightly gliding, these overtone-fuelled whispers are thoroughly marvellous, an important message to the people who keep blathering around “vibration”, absolutely unaware of the word’s actual implications.
In technical terms – which almost equals swearing, given the purity of the resulting sounds – Robinson utilized exclusively clarinets (precisely, basset horn or birbyne) smoothly enhanced by a Max/MSP live electronic system. The outcome’s unpretentiousness teaches a lesson to those musicians who allow the computer to do everything, thus killing the potential spiritual traits of a work. Despite the absence of immediately recognizable clarinet pitches – except perhaps for the initial part of “The Lingering”, where the instrument’s real voice is clearly audible – the sonic occurrences are acknowledged as innate, akin to something we were raised to - and still necessary. One couldn’t really match this up to the aforementioned Niblock, or Alvin Lucier, in spite of the typical adjacent-tone quivering produced by some of these pieces. Robinson’s approach is not that manifest: it’s less physical, seemingly informed by meditation and reminiscence and, in that logic, maybe closer to the essence of Eliane Radigue’s concentrated transcendence. This, ultimately, renders the whole effective in an utterly new way. And this, too, is what we call an individual style, not the least because the tracks are very short in comparison to the lengthy distances privileged by the others. Also, that this woman has waited so long for deciding to release her own material is testimony to a rare wisdom.
Either via speakers (recommended - and in “repeat” mode, of course) or headphones, the influence of Billows on my psychophysical organization has been incredible in barely three days of listening. The importance of this kind of event in a receptive person’s life can’t be stressed enough. Near silence, and even further. It is all extraordinarily beautiful, an inherent gratitude perceived as the heartbeat frequency decreases.
Plush
Robinson is deeply linked with the conceptions of Giacinto Scelsi, who offered a veritable authentication of her thinking of music (“an opening toward something beyond our reality”). However, among the influences declared by this Paris-based American artist, the winds of South Dakota - where she lived as a young girl - represent the most important. Indeed Billows resonates splendidly exactly for its correspondence to the “composite minimalism” of this natural phenomenon. Gently intertwining, caressing breezes on the skin while standing in contemplation under a warm sun, no urban or human presence, only the listener and the cosmos at large. This is what a sensitive subject will probably wish when inhaling this music, possibly alone, in full quietness. Entirely linear or slightly gliding, these overtone-fuelled whispers are thoroughly marvellous, an important message to the people who keep blathering around “vibration”, absolutely unaware of the word’s actual implications.
In technical terms – which almost equals swearing, given the purity of the resulting sounds – Robinson utilized exclusively clarinets (precisely, basset horn or birbyne) smoothly enhanced by a Max/MSP live electronic system. The outcome’s unpretentiousness teaches a lesson to those musicians who allow the computer to do everything, thus killing the potential spiritual traits of a work. Despite the absence of immediately recognizable clarinet pitches – except perhaps for the initial part of “The Lingering”, where the instrument’s real voice is clearly audible – the sonic occurrences are acknowledged as innate, akin to something we were raised to - and still necessary. One couldn’t really match this up to the aforementioned Niblock, or Alvin Lucier, in spite of the typical adjacent-tone quivering produced by some of these pieces. Robinson’s approach is not that manifest: it’s less physical, seemingly informed by meditation and reminiscence and, in that logic, maybe closer to the essence of Eliane Radigue’s concentrated transcendence. This, ultimately, renders the whole effective in an utterly new way. And this, too, is what we call an individual style, not the least because the tracks are very short in comparison to the lengthy distances privileged by the others. Also, that this woman has waited so long for deciding to release her own material is testimony to a rare wisdom.
Either via speakers (recommended - and in “repeat” mode, of course) or headphones, the influence of Billows on my psychophysical organization has been incredible in barely three days of listening. The importance of this kind of event in a receptive person’s life can’t be stressed enough. Near silence, and even further. It is all extraordinarily beautiful, an inherent gratitude perceived as the heartbeat frequency decreases.
Plush
Tuesday, 29 December 2009
HAPSBURG BRAGANZA - Hatchling
Under the curious moniker hides Phil Begg from Newcastle (a positive sign for starters - does the name :zoviet*france: ring any bell?). Especially known as a creative improviser in the Belgian avant-garde circles, this artist works with an array of processors, microphones and instruments, concocting fascinating sequences of natural-sounding events and seaming the resulting imagery with a compositional maturity that betrays his young age.
We could say that Hatchling features three different stages. In the first part, all one hears is a series of intertwining elements, feeble discharges and toneless secretions superimposed in moderate dynamic alteration. Nothing extraordinarily striking per se, but it’s how these factors are combined that lights a bulb. In fact, these malnourished constituents are deployed very considerately, propagating effortlessly around the listener’s head, totally avoiding that feeling of stereotyped field recording that kills many good intentions in this musical area.
The real mesmeric effects start materializing circa fifteen minutes in. And it happens – you won’t believe it – with water, Hapsburg Braganza having managed to generate something gorgeous with the most worn out kind of environmental accent. It begins with an unadulterated wash, presumably captured at the Crummock Water shore, as Begg indicates in the sleeve notes. Subsequently, the flux grows in intensity until it becomes an actual waterfall, the consequence an extremely effective relaxing therapy, principally when listened via headphones.
From that point on, straight sailing to logical emptiness: a marvelous static drone, perhaps obtained by layering an Indian Harmonium with bowed piano and guitar strings (checking the instrumentation right now) rises from the streams to take full possession of our entire system. The body reaches a state of complete respite, the mind is – as always – ready to be transported in places exclusively accessible to those able to decode a peculiar jargon, where words are a waste of time and vibration is the only desire. The conclusive moments are characterized by the remote, yet still reassuring presence of blackbirds, pigeons and ducks, definitely useful for a gentle awakening from this beneficial analytical inertia.
Forty minutes have passed without us realizing, with just a modicum of ecological and instrumental voices. Delivered from unconstructive thoughts, we set ourselves for another day amidst human vulgarity. When that sort of heart-drying routine tries to molest your internal quietude, give a spin to this beautiful CD.
Idiosyncratics
We could say that Hatchling features three different stages. In the first part, all one hears is a series of intertwining elements, feeble discharges and toneless secretions superimposed in moderate dynamic alteration. Nothing extraordinarily striking per se, but it’s how these factors are combined that lights a bulb. In fact, these malnourished constituents are deployed very considerately, propagating effortlessly around the listener’s head, totally avoiding that feeling of stereotyped field recording that kills many good intentions in this musical area.
The real mesmeric effects start materializing circa fifteen minutes in. And it happens – you won’t believe it – with water, Hapsburg Braganza having managed to generate something gorgeous with the most worn out kind of environmental accent. It begins with an unadulterated wash, presumably captured at the Crummock Water shore, as Begg indicates in the sleeve notes. Subsequently, the flux grows in intensity until it becomes an actual waterfall, the consequence an extremely effective relaxing therapy, principally when listened via headphones.
From that point on, straight sailing to logical emptiness: a marvelous static drone, perhaps obtained by layering an Indian Harmonium with bowed piano and guitar strings (checking the instrumentation right now) rises from the streams to take full possession of our entire system. The body reaches a state of complete respite, the mind is – as always – ready to be transported in places exclusively accessible to those able to decode a peculiar jargon, where words are a waste of time and vibration is the only desire. The conclusive moments are characterized by the remote, yet still reassuring presence of blackbirds, pigeons and ducks, definitely useful for a gentle awakening from this beneficial analytical inertia.
Forty minutes have passed without us realizing, with just a modicum of ecological and instrumental voices. Delivered from unconstructive thoughts, we set ourselves for another day amidst human vulgarity. When that sort of heart-drying routine tries to molest your internal quietude, give a spin to this beautiful CD.
Idiosyncratics
Friday, 25 December 2009
LÉOS ATOR – 3 Requiems Rouges
A recent email by French sound-poet Léos Ator (née Lionel Stora) courteously invited this scribe to give news about the reaction to this CDR, a 30-copy limited edition sent by the composer a few months prior that was lying amidst piles of other records, waiting for review. Uncharacteristically, this polite request ignited a desire to listen to the disc immediately: an act that brought valuable spiritual consequences and the acquaintance with a seriously talented artist.
Ator recorded the music by using the voice and what he calls “pure data programming”, his work, quoting from the press blurb, “freely inspired by medieval Requiem as its main purpose was to invite listeners to meditate on life while fading away”. Whereas the central episode appears as nothing more than an interesting concurrence of electronic pitches generating an uncanny foreign harmony, completely hiding the vocal qualities behind a constantly changing mass of acute sounds, the final piece is almost bloodcurdling, in some measure recalling early Lustmord: a single deep growl counterpointed by vacillating lines, periodic dissonant clusters effectively altering the droning temperament. A strong affirmation indeed.
But the real awe comes from the initial track, entirely constructed on a slowly mounting massive moan that threw me in a state of complete entrancement since the very beginning. This bottomless low-frequency lamentation evolves through semi-static shifts – think a cross of Mirror, Ligeti and a squad of bombers in flight as heard from long distance - complemented by additional waveforms which, peculiarly, resemble a somewhat discordant background of wooden flutes. The whole is augmented by indistinct appearances of soprano-like interferences after the first half. No words can explain the influence, the absolutely stunning effect of this sonic matter on the psyche.
3 Requiems Rouges needs a room to resound just as a human body necessitates oxygen to survive. Even if this will remain the one time in which I decided to spin a CD upon its creator’s pushing, it was the right thing to do. Please welcome Mr. Ator among the personalities to keep an attentive eye on, and try to secure an exemplar of this item, if only for the fantastic opening chapter. Alternatively, you can download the title at the label's website.
Bourbaki
Ator recorded the music by using the voice and what he calls “pure data programming”, his work, quoting from the press blurb, “freely inspired by medieval Requiem as its main purpose was to invite listeners to meditate on life while fading away”. Whereas the central episode appears as nothing more than an interesting concurrence of electronic pitches generating an uncanny foreign harmony, completely hiding the vocal qualities behind a constantly changing mass of acute sounds, the final piece is almost bloodcurdling, in some measure recalling early Lustmord: a single deep growl counterpointed by vacillating lines, periodic dissonant clusters effectively altering the droning temperament. A strong affirmation indeed.
But the real awe comes from the initial track, entirely constructed on a slowly mounting massive moan that threw me in a state of complete entrancement since the very beginning. This bottomless low-frequency lamentation evolves through semi-static shifts – think a cross of Mirror, Ligeti and a squad of bombers in flight as heard from long distance - complemented by additional waveforms which, peculiarly, resemble a somewhat discordant background of wooden flutes. The whole is augmented by indistinct appearances of soprano-like interferences after the first half. No words can explain the influence, the absolutely stunning effect of this sonic matter on the psyche.
3 Requiems Rouges needs a room to resound just as a human body necessitates oxygen to survive. Even if this will remain the one time in which I decided to spin a CD upon its creator’s pushing, it was the right thing to do. Please welcome Mr. Ator among the personalities to keep an attentive eye on, and try to secure an exemplar of this item, if only for the fantastic opening chapter. Alternatively, you can download the title at the label's website.
Bourbaki
Thursday, 24 December 2009
AIDAN BAKER - Dry
What can a sonic crafter who became famous for the use of looped guitars do, if dispossessed of effects and delays? The answer lies in the 47 minutes of Dry, which was entirely played on an unprocessed electric guitar, nine tracks linked together as in a single piece.
Difficult, for the non-owners of an instinctive musicality, to even think of appearing completely exposed and unaided, attempting to produce appealing music without resorting to tricks. It is there that the separation between contenders and pretenders takes place. Baker is well acquainted with the core essence of the instrument: the fact that this record sounds related, in a unique way, to one of the countless lucid dreams he gifted us with in the past is testimony to his immutable sense of personal synchronization, which transits across many lands – static recollection, tranquil arpeggio, unanticipated crackle. Rather stunning, especially considering the bareness of the utilized means.
The Canadian’s ability is also established by the customary richness of those layers, reiterative figurations and chiming chords that, once superimposed, cause sympathetic resonance in large quantity. Not that there’s only cuteness: on the contrary, noisy particles of unclear activity, thumping hits and semi-strums – and, just maybe, some manual preparation - characterize the most surprising parts of the disc. But when Baker brings the whole to a conclusion by utilizing a mechanism of heartrending pseudo-vocal glissandos – ending the trip with the highest percentage of evocation – we’re finally able to release our breath, the deep sigh that typically follows an intense listening experience. “Yes, it’s still him” is the thought that comes to mind during the silent instants following the closing stages.
A touch of class that resounds magically, a highly recommended work – again – by a true poet of reminiscent reverberation.
Install
Difficult, for the non-owners of an instinctive musicality, to even think of appearing completely exposed and unaided, attempting to produce appealing music without resorting to tricks. It is there that the separation between contenders and pretenders takes place. Baker is well acquainted with the core essence of the instrument: the fact that this record sounds related, in a unique way, to one of the countless lucid dreams he gifted us with in the past is testimony to his immutable sense of personal synchronization, which transits across many lands – static recollection, tranquil arpeggio, unanticipated crackle. Rather stunning, especially considering the bareness of the utilized means.
The Canadian’s ability is also established by the customary richness of those layers, reiterative figurations and chiming chords that, once superimposed, cause sympathetic resonance in large quantity. Not that there’s only cuteness: on the contrary, noisy particles of unclear activity, thumping hits and semi-strums – and, just maybe, some manual preparation - characterize the most surprising parts of the disc. But when Baker brings the whole to a conclusion by utilizing a mechanism of heartrending pseudo-vocal glissandos – ending the trip with the highest percentage of evocation – we’re finally able to release our breath, the deep sigh that typically follows an intense listening experience. “Yes, it’s still him” is the thought that comes to mind during the silent instants following the closing stages.
A touch of class that resounds magically, a highly recommended work – again – by a true poet of reminiscent reverberation.
Install
Friday, 27 November 2009
MIKA VAINIO - Aíneen Musta Puhelin
The English title is Black Telephone Of Matter, which is probably less fascinating – and perhaps even more incomprehensible - than its Finnish translation. But - language matters aside - this album by Vainio, the fourth at his name on Touch, gives us several reasons for feeling musically rewarded, and many others to remain wholly mystified and at a loss for words in the unproductive attempt to describe sounds that are impenetrable, often incredibly cold, yet attuned with the logic of solitary contemplation (bordering on inaccessible sufferance) that is becoming rather typical of the era in which the world seems to shut doors to whoever stands outside the borders of mass stupidity.
In spite of the countless silences that the record presents the most frequent response is a sense of oppressing adversity, the kind of thoughts that usually people try to swat away through an unrealistic vision of eventual future betterments that, in truth, are not likely to appear anytime soon. We’re left alone with sudden appearances of computerized excretions whose equalization is at times irritant, barely audible exudations introducing waste materials replete with electrostatic remnants and misshapen atmospheres from unknown places – could be a waterfall or an anechoic chamber, the result remains a total despoliation of the original tissue of a sound source.
When Vainio decides that low frequencies and entrancement must become one and the same, he delivers authoritatively: tracks such as “Hautaa Hevosen Pää” (dedicated to John Duncan) and the final “Hengityttajä”, both utilizing elements of physical reality amidst impressive landscapes of forlorn burdensomeness, place this disc in the “spin again before long” list.
Next time we’ll think about smiling.
Touch
In spite of the countless silences that the record presents the most frequent response is a sense of oppressing adversity, the kind of thoughts that usually people try to swat away through an unrealistic vision of eventual future betterments that, in truth, are not likely to appear anytime soon. We’re left alone with sudden appearances of computerized excretions whose equalization is at times irritant, barely audible exudations introducing waste materials replete with electrostatic remnants and misshapen atmospheres from unknown places – could be a waterfall or an anechoic chamber, the result remains a total despoliation of the original tissue of a sound source.
When Vainio decides that low frequencies and entrancement must become one and the same, he delivers authoritatively: tracks such as “Hautaa Hevosen Pää” (dedicated to John Duncan) and the final “Hengityttajä”, both utilizing elements of physical reality amidst impressive landscapes of forlorn burdensomeness, place this disc in the “spin again before long” list.
Next time we’ll think about smiling.
Touch
Wednesday, 18 November 2009
GÜNTER MÜLLER – Cym Bowl
Finding brain-teasing complications in Günter Müller’s sonic conceptions is a hard task, maybe impossible. Yet, having started as a “regular” percussionist, he’s made the most of an ever-noticeable sensitiveness in the treatment of both the percussive arsenal and the emissions coming from other sources (he was probably the first to utilize an iPod as a generator), thus giving birth to an innovative brand of intensely affecting electronic music, often spiced with EAI components. The Swiss composer is really one of a kind, and the fact that we almost instantly recognize those characters as soon as his records are spun is testimony to the status reached.
As the title implies, this album was entirely realized with cymbals and a singing bowl, the initial three tracks and the last respectively informed by those instruments. The original sounds are rendered nearly unrecognizable after being subjected to a skilful studio therapy, which makes sure that all which is caught by the listener consists of a series of hypnotizing impulses, an imposing throbbing whose diffusion is enhanced by admirably unusual overtones. The unclear definition of the structure and the hazy features of these meticulous juxtapositions define any attempt to trace a profile of the compositional design as meaningless: we just receive the mass of sound as perceived, fully satisfied with its intoxicating permanence and incontestable beauty. A natural phenomenon to behold more than a simple musical piece.
“Third Cym” is perhaps the most absorbing track on offer in terms of emotional content, containing the ideal doses of everything: pulse, luminescence, reiteration, capacity of progressive entrancement. But it’s the final “Bowl” that results as an extraordinarily congenial deviation from the “norm”, a vacillating harmony possessing a sort of vocal quality transforming it in a cryptic choral strain amidst bodiless echoes of lastingness, ending in absolute mystery following a shift towards the realms of incomprehensible droning, the whole underlined by various kinds of subterranean heterogeneity. A step in a different direction for Müller which we’d love to see deepened in the future, a disquietingly poignant episode pushing an already gratifying release into the ranks of excellence.
That the pronunciation of the record’s name equals “symbol” is only a thought crossing my mind; it remains to be seen what the main designer is referring to, if that’s not a mere coincidence.
Mikroton
STOP PRESS. Just in from Günter Müller: (...) cym_bowl = symbol was clear for me as soon as I knew that I would use the bowl for a cd. There you go!
As the title implies, this album was entirely realized with cymbals and a singing bowl, the initial three tracks and the last respectively informed by those instruments. The original sounds are rendered nearly unrecognizable after being subjected to a skilful studio therapy, which makes sure that all which is caught by the listener consists of a series of hypnotizing impulses, an imposing throbbing whose diffusion is enhanced by admirably unusual overtones. The unclear definition of the structure and the hazy features of these meticulous juxtapositions define any attempt to trace a profile of the compositional design as meaningless: we just receive the mass of sound as perceived, fully satisfied with its intoxicating permanence and incontestable beauty. A natural phenomenon to behold more than a simple musical piece.
“Third Cym” is perhaps the most absorbing track on offer in terms of emotional content, containing the ideal doses of everything: pulse, luminescence, reiteration, capacity of progressive entrancement. But it’s the final “Bowl” that results as an extraordinarily congenial deviation from the “norm”, a vacillating harmony possessing a sort of vocal quality transforming it in a cryptic choral strain amidst bodiless echoes of lastingness, ending in absolute mystery following a shift towards the realms of incomprehensible droning, the whole underlined by various kinds of subterranean heterogeneity. A step in a different direction for Müller which we’d love to see deepened in the future, a disquietingly poignant episode pushing an already gratifying release into the ranks of excellence.
That the pronunciation of the record’s name equals “symbol” is only a thought crossing my mind; it remains to be seen what the main designer is referring to, if that’s not a mere coincidence.
Mikroton
STOP PRESS. Just in from Günter Müller: (...) cym_bowl = symbol was clear for me as soon as I knew that I would use the bowl for a cd. There you go!
Wednesday, 28 October 2009
JOHN DUNCAN – Live Brussels
Recorded at Argos VZW Ways Of Hearing Festival on October 18, 2007, this performance comes in an extremely limited edition CD (50 copies autographed by the composer). As the label’s name implies, John Duncan’s ideas leave us asking questions rather than finding answers, this mysterious set being no exception.
The opening drone – a wonderfully wavering pulsation shifting in the stereo field with evident effects on the nerves – is suddenly cut short by a discharge of disposable sonic materials, abruptly interrupting the state of illusion created in the initial segment. From then on, the audibility level diminishes quite a bit and one is forced to turn the volume way up – provided that you’re not wearing headphones, of course – in order to presume (not really understanding) what’s going on.
At first, intangible appearances – the sound similar to a twister blowing through a hundred bottlenecks - maintain the atmosphere relatively static, although disturbed at last by a measure of electronic interference. This section works well also by mixing it with the sounds coming from the outside, but that’s not the point. What matters is the customary sense of somewhat anxious awareness of an implied deeper process, ever less than predictable in its cross-pollination of human expression and mechanical amorphousness. The muffled helicopter-like throb appearing after approximately 15 minutes introduces an even more impenetrable setting during which Duncan’s shortwave mastery shines of its very radiance, additional fragments of brain-stimulating frequencies mixed with urban echoes and a few whispered words to perplex the listener once again.
Remote explosions, contaminated air, biotic resemblances enhanced by processed vocal phonemes, humming mantras picturing a hardly bearable solitude, distant sirens, ill minds, suffering people, a desperate search for a solution amidst ominous reverberations highlighting the limitations of mankind. Duncan is neither a teacher nor a healer - or maybe he is both? - yet his performances always manage to elicit serious distress and important indications - which is what real art is all about.
Allquestions
The opening drone – a wonderfully wavering pulsation shifting in the stereo field with evident effects on the nerves – is suddenly cut short by a discharge of disposable sonic materials, abruptly interrupting the state of illusion created in the initial segment. From then on, the audibility level diminishes quite a bit and one is forced to turn the volume way up – provided that you’re not wearing headphones, of course – in order to presume (not really understanding) what’s going on.
At first, intangible appearances – the sound similar to a twister blowing through a hundred bottlenecks - maintain the atmosphere relatively static, although disturbed at last by a measure of electronic interference. This section works well also by mixing it with the sounds coming from the outside, but that’s not the point. What matters is the customary sense of somewhat anxious awareness of an implied deeper process, ever less than predictable in its cross-pollination of human expression and mechanical amorphousness. The muffled helicopter-like throb appearing after approximately 15 minutes introduces an even more impenetrable setting during which Duncan’s shortwave mastery shines of its very radiance, additional fragments of brain-stimulating frequencies mixed with urban echoes and a few whispered words to perplex the listener once again.
Remote explosions, contaminated air, biotic resemblances enhanced by processed vocal phonemes, humming mantras picturing a hardly bearable solitude, distant sirens, ill minds, suffering people, a desperate search for a solution amidst ominous reverberations highlighting the limitations of mankind. Duncan is neither a teacher nor a healer - or maybe he is both? - yet his performances always manage to elicit serious distress and important indications - which is what real art is all about.
Allquestions
Saturday, 10 October 2009
MARINOS KOUTSOMICHALIS – Anasiseipsychos
A full hour of sine waves, the result of “late-night improvisations” at home by this knob-twiddling Greek man who knows what he’s doing. Let’s make it clear right now: Anasiseipsychos is a great CD, one of those releases made to be played endlessly, day in day out. For this writer sinusoidal tones represent something nearing cosmic perfection, therefore how could anybody expect a “critical” analysis of what’s just a product of interweaving purities?
OK, here we go, get a cheap description: permanent lines, slowly arching frequencies, decaying ellipses, intertwining glissandos. Wait a minute, I hear voices shouting, everybody can do this. No, sir: a person must possess a special kind of ear to set this type of resonance into a structure definable as “music”, and it looks to me that Koutsomichalis is up to the task.
Nothing here is designable as “unprecedented”, but these creations are peacefully beautiful in their crystalline minimalism. Not to mention all those deceptive geometric allusions that inquisitive ears find tangentially, or in some corner, or at the vertex of a virtual triangle…more or less everywhere. And what about the customary natural equalizations deriving from the different inclination of the head, and the non-existent pulses that an efficient cerebrum generates? Pure illusion, like everything that’s being told to keep believers docile and ignorant, as Frank Zappa would have it, until “enlightenment”.
Sound does not claim to heal people; on the contrary, it kills those who are talking nonsense around it, little by little. So be careful: what is functional for complex intelligences is instead lethal for hollow-minded followers of alleged deities that, in turn, encourage psychological illness, the whole inevitably causing the rational (and possibly physical) collapse of both creators and adorers in a reciprocal sucking of vital juices.
When losers are left alone with the purity of real vibration – that which a creature is (or is not) able to resonate within from the birth, and nobody can teach - the inconclusive bitterness of loophole living becomes really hard to swallow. You are what your brain and body eat, you are what you say, you die for what you are. And you didn’t learn to listen.
Entr'acte
OK, here we go, get a cheap description: permanent lines, slowly arching frequencies, decaying ellipses, intertwining glissandos. Wait a minute, I hear voices shouting, everybody can do this. No, sir: a person must possess a special kind of ear to set this type of resonance into a structure definable as “music”, and it looks to me that Koutsomichalis is up to the task.
Nothing here is designable as “unprecedented”, but these creations are peacefully beautiful in their crystalline minimalism. Not to mention all those deceptive geometric allusions that inquisitive ears find tangentially, or in some corner, or at the vertex of a virtual triangle…more or less everywhere. And what about the customary natural equalizations deriving from the different inclination of the head, and the non-existent pulses that an efficient cerebrum generates? Pure illusion, like everything that’s being told to keep believers docile and ignorant, as Frank Zappa would have it, until “enlightenment”.
Sound does not claim to heal people; on the contrary, it kills those who are talking nonsense around it, little by little. So be careful: what is functional for complex intelligences is instead lethal for hollow-minded followers of alleged deities that, in turn, encourage psychological illness, the whole inevitably causing the rational (and possibly physical) collapse of both creators and adorers in a reciprocal sucking of vital juices.
When losers are left alone with the purity of real vibration – that which a creature is (or is not) able to resonate within from the birth, and nobody can teach - the inconclusive bitterness of loophole living becomes really hard to swallow. You are what your brain and body eat, you are what you say, you die for what you are. And you didn’t learn to listen.
Entr'acte
Tuesday, 15 September 2009
ISOBEL CLOUTER / ROB MULLENDER – Myths Of Origin: Sonic Ephemera From East Asia
Environment-based editions are a dime a dozen these days, trying to discover a special item a pretty hard assignment. Fear not, though: just walk towards Dale Lloyd’s ever-impressive And/OAR to come across a catalogue as diverse as the various facets of human activity, not to mention the level of touching intensity shown by some of this label’s records over the years. This splendid work by Clouter and Mullender was originally conceived in 1999, year in which they decided to gather sounds that “would serve to illustrate how precious the sonic environment can be, and to act as founding materials for a soundscape collection at the British Library Sound Archive”. All the pieces of this CD borrow from original recordings made in 2001 in regions of Japan and China.
The sources of these impressions are traces of urban life and organic reverberations perceived in different settings including temples, private gardens, deserts and beaches. The team-mates appear to be principally interested – as confirmed by the extremely detailed notes of the accompanying booklet – in the phenomenon of booming sands, which they frantically tried to capture in several occasions, mainly during a stay in the Mongolian desert. Indeed the sounds recorded amidst the dunes characterize the vast majority of the second half of the program - the one where a distinctly droning nature, which renders the acoustic landscape ominous at times, seems to prevail as opposed to the more variegated expressions – sea waves, children at play amidst talking folks, metallic thuds, kitchen-related noises, squeaking objects, traffic and other assorted symptoms – that are mostly found in the Japanese files, but also in the conclusive episode taped at the Labrang monastery in Xiahe, largely characterized by the creaking spinning of Tibetan prayer wheels.
Leaving details aside, what actually strikes is the way in which Clouter and Mullender managed to seize and subsequently organize the inherent musicality of these flashes. It’s right here that contenders get separated from pretenders in this particular area. One thing is sticking a microphone outside a window and finding an excuse to release whatever happens in those sixty minutes; another is embarking in a project of such extent and significance, a trip that is not strictly geographic but touches the essential aspects of the reactions that humans have when confronted with aural occurrences that do not belong to a daily familiarity. Those responses are fundamental in determining who we really are, as the behaviour in front of sound is the perfect gauge for a soul’s depth and, at large, the real value of hypothetically “sentient” entities. The amazement of the two partners, clearly expressed at the end of “Dune 3” after having heard marvellous murmurs, is an indicator in that sense. It shows the degree of love for existence that is necessary to individuate a quintessence, something that was achieved completely in this case, unpronounced mysticism and earthly manifestations blending in physical radiance.
And/OAR
The sources of these impressions are traces of urban life and organic reverberations perceived in different settings including temples, private gardens, deserts and beaches. The team-mates appear to be principally interested – as confirmed by the extremely detailed notes of the accompanying booklet – in the phenomenon of booming sands, which they frantically tried to capture in several occasions, mainly during a stay in the Mongolian desert. Indeed the sounds recorded amidst the dunes characterize the vast majority of the second half of the program - the one where a distinctly droning nature, which renders the acoustic landscape ominous at times, seems to prevail as opposed to the more variegated expressions – sea waves, children at play amidst talking folks, metallic thuds, kitchen-related noises, squeaking objects, traffic and other assorted symptoms – that are mostly found in the Japanese files, but also in the conclusive episode taped at the Labrang monastery in Xiahe, largely characterized by the creaking spinning of Tibetan prayer wheels.
Leaving details aside, what actually strikes is the way in which Clouter and Mullender managed to seize and subsequently organize the inherent musicality of these flashes. It’s right here that contenders get separated from pretenders in this particular area. One thing is sticking a microphone outside a window and finding an excuse to release whatever happens in those sixty minutes; another is embarking in a project of such extent and significance, a trip that is not strictly geographic but touches the essential aspects of the reactions that humans have when confronted with aural occurrences that do not belong to a daily familiarity. Those responses are fundamental in determining who we really are, as the behaviour in front of sound is the perfect gauge for a soul’s depth and, at large, the real value of hypothetically “sentient” entities. The amazement of the two partners, clearly expressed at the end of “Dune 3” after having heard marvellous murmurs, is an indicator in that sense. It shows the degree of love for existence that is necessary to individuate a quintessence, something that was achieved completely in this case, unpronounced mysticism and earthly manifestations blending in physical radiance.
And/OAR
Friday, 11 September 2009
NIKOS VELIOTIS – Cello Powder
I’m not annoying everybody by repeating the whole concept and the almost ritual procedures behind this work (just Google the artist’s name with the record’s title and get what you need). On a strictly musical sense, something must be said, though. Veliotis subdivided the cello’s tonal range in 100 quarter tones and – from August 26 through December 6, 2008 – painstakingly recorded a sixty-minute drone for each pitch. The daily diary of this operation appears in tiny print on the sleeve and it’s quite interesting - if a little hard on the eyes - to read, had someone believed that making droning music is easy (try without a keyboard, then come back weeping). Following this Via Crucis, the resulting 100-note telluric mantra was placed in a single audio file called “The Complete Works For Cello”.
The sonic outcome is extraordinary: a huge wall of sound that might be described as a cross-pollination of Phill Niblock, Glenn Branca and Iannis Xenakis occurring during the Chernobyl disaster. Familiar with the very long silences typical of this Greek cellist? They’re gone: this is a colossal, monolithic mass whose stillness reveals thousands of disguised micro-movements. Listen carefully and, especially when wearing headphones, superimposed orchestras, indecipherably singing choirs and lone vocalists are distinctly perceived. It is only a fruit of the imagination, grown from the accumulation of upper partials, notes and noises comprised by this amassment. Superlatives - and the will of totally liberating your head from everything else – are definitely required.
A fantastic CD that’s going to be enormously valuable in a much needed process of isolation from the rest of the world, at least for a hour, and – more than ever – from all kinds of endlessly pontificating schnooks. Nikos Veliotis rules.
Noise-Below
The sonic outcome is extraordinary: a huge wall of sound that might be described as a cross-pollination of Phill Niblock, Glenn Branca and Iannis Xenakis occurring during the Chernobyl disaster. Familiar with the very long silences typical of this Greek cellist? They’re gone: this is a colossal, monolithic mass whose stillness reveals thousands of disguised micro-movements. Listen carefully and, especially when wearing headphones, superimposed orchestras, indecipherably singing choirs and lone vocalists are distinctly perceived. It is only a fruit of the imagination, grown from the accumulation of upper partials, notes and noises comprised by this amassment. Superlatives - and the will of totally liberating your head from everything else – are definitely required.
A fantastic CD that’s going to be enormously valuable in a much needed process of isolation from the rest of the world, at least for a hour, and – more than ever – from all kinds of endlessly pontificating schnooks. Nikos Veliotis rules.
Noise-Below
Wednesday, 26 August 2009
TARAB – Take All Of The Ships From The Harbour, And Sail Them Straight To Hell
A claimant for the top spots in the artistic area where acoustically stimulating communiqués exploit the interaction linking a specific environment and the objects that furnish it, Australian Eamon Sprod (Tarab) recorded the basics for his new record in regions of the globe that are both pretty close and very distant from where he’s based. In the latter case the zone in question is Angel Island, in the bay of San Francisco, which initially used to lodge an immigration center, then became an American military base, and today is managed by the US National Park Service. The remnants of what once were buildings stuffed with anguishing truths are decaying in silence; that’s exactly the kind of setting this man needs to create.
The lack of human presence is a too-heavy burden for the average soul to resist to, and I’ve often wondered what people who usually talk ad infinitum might receive from an opus like this, in which the most recurrent incidence is a sort of hushed resonance, in between a ghoul-infested hall and an abandoned warehouse that only a desperate somebody enters, expecting to unearth something “useful” amidst dumped materials and rotting debris. Past glories gone, nonexistent future, worn-to-shreds existences, yet a still strong dignity imbued with a special type of holiness. Concepts that quickly find their way across the psyche as one listens to these forlorn echoes, a crushingly desolate aural ambiance just rarely pierced by ruthless clanging abrasions, or enhanced by other kinds of crackling and hissing matters; sounds that progressively discover an accommodation in the deepest meanders of the brain causing an unusual intoxication, not obeying to the desire of distancing ourselves from a contemptible reality.
Is it the wind, or a poisonous gas? Are those whispering insufflations the last calls to observe the world’s leftovers before they definitively disappear? As soon as a powerful rumble is heard from a long distance we hold our breath, trying to virtually grasp the nature of that place and blow that vision away, ashes of meaning in the sea of ignorance. The sensitive listener remains silently waiting for more of those moments, in the vain hope of being led through a path of comfort. It doesn’t work, the frequencies of tarnished rational mechanisms and the reverberations of individual negligence sticking painful needles in the flesh of illusory beliefs.
Probably this is the best documentation released by Tarab until now: marvellously unsolvable, deeply affecting, incomprehensible for the populace, evolutionally constructive. Set aside a good chunk of your time and concentrate when listening, prior to even attempting to speak. It takes a while for this 56-minute piece to sink in; when it happens, a small fraction of enlightenment has been achieved. It corresponds to the awareness that the end is near, right behind the gate many herds are confidently, pretentiously, anticipating to traverse, childish victims of an absolute joke. There’s no need to be afraid, though: when the mind is not working anymore having reached its expiry date, hollowness suddenly stops spreading, and the cosmos breathes a little better. Transformed energy does not rant about god, but contributes to the propagation of a massive vibration.
23Five
The lack of human presence is a too-heavy burden for the average soul to resist to, and I’ve often wondered what people who usually talk ad infinitum might receive from an opus like this, in which the most recurrent incidence is a sort of hushed resonance, in between a ghoul-infested hall and an abandoned warehouse that only a desperate somebody enters, expecting to unearth something “useful” amidst dumped materials and rotting debris. Past glories gone, nonexistent future, worn-to-shreds existences, yet a still strong dignity imbued with a special type of holiness. Concepts that quickly find their way across the psyche as one listens to these forlorn echoes, a crushingly desolate aural ambiance just rarely pierced by ruthless clanging abrasions, or enhanced by other kinds of crackling and hissing matters; sounds that progressively discover an accommodation in the deepest meanders of the brain causing an unusual intoxication, not obeying to the desire of distancing ourselves from a contemptible reality.
Is it the wind, or a poisonous gas? Are those whispering insufflations the last calls to observe the world’s leftovers before they definitively disappear? As soon as a powerful rumble is heard from a long distance we hold our breath, trying to virtually grasp the nature of that place and blow that vision away, ashes of meaning in the sea of ignorance. The sensitive listener remains silently waiting for more of those moments, in the vain hope of being led through a path of comfort. It doesn’t work, the frequencies of tarnished rational mechanisms and the reverberations of individual negligence sticking painful needles in the flesh of illusory beliefs.
Probably this is the best documentation released by Tarab until now: marvellously unsolvable, deeply affecting, incomprehensible for the populace, evolutionally constructive. Set aside a good chunk of your time and concentrate when listening, prior to even attempting to speak. It takes a while for this 56-minute piece to sink in; when it happens, a small fraction of enlightenment has been achieved. It corresponds to the awareness that the end is near, right behind the gate many herds are confidently, pretentiously, anticipating to traverse, childish victims of an absolute joke. There’s no need to be afraid, though: when the mind is not working anymore having reached its expiry date, hollowness suddenly stops spreading, and the cosmos breathes a little better. Transformed energy does not rant about god, but contributes to the propagation of a massive vibration.
23Five
Monday, 24 August 2009
IRR. APP. (EXT.) – Kreiselwelle
Wilhelm Reich used to hypothesize about the interrelation of energy, life forms and the universe at large. Kreiselwelle – final chapter of a trilogy, Ozeanische Gefühle and Cosmic Superimposition being the preceding instalments – is Irr. App. (Ext.)’s imaginative portrayal of what Reich defined as “spiral wave” (that’s the album’s title in English), a recurring shape that the psychologist had observed in several systems, not necessarily restricting his analysis to biotic issues.
The improvement of consciousness via abnormal sonorities is an aim that many composers have tried to achieve, with mixed results. Matt Waldron excels in the creation of extremely affecting soundscapes based on the concurrence and the management of sonic objects – on occasion, even ordinary ones - in contexts where urban or natural environmental factors and a general vibe of amorphousness exemplify a critical incidence. For this album, Waldron utilized found sounds whose origin or character can be associated, more or less directly, to the same configuration that inspires the whole concept. Springs, whirling air, washing of fluids, soil noises, someone’s steps: everything seamed in an organic continuum, gradually losing its quintessence to establish a sort of spontaneous pattern, the crucial resonance of these elements merged in a synthesis of hypnotically cyclical, bottomless pulses featuring human echoes, bewildering electronic intermissions, gargantuan breathing, stifling vapours derived from liquefied compatibilities.
The corrosion of faith, the dissolution of confidence, the determination to identify with “what comes after” way before the moment is due: this excursion through the meanders of psychoactive mutability causes these and other reactions, working much better than thousands of inadequate words, involuntarily succeeding in depicting the frenetically unsystematic activity of the brain during the REM phase, the instant in which a huge quantity of data appears, memories from current and past experiences jumbled in a typically disjointed hotchpotch.
The collaboration between Irr. App. (Ext.) and Nurse With Wound didn’t crop up by chance: there are indeed a few sections that vaguely hint to Steve Stapleton’s tortuously nightmarish impenetrability. Still, behind Kreiselwelle lies a manifestly individual logic that only a rigorously open-minded inspection is going to disclose in full. It’s a record one could easily get lost in; subsequent to the decoding process, though, we find ourselves incredibly close to the essential core of what sound and its connection with non-standard mental procedures represent for our existence to keep flowing without excessive traumas. A difficult yet imperative conception, indispensable for detaching a fundamental reality from those self-constructed psychological shelters that inevitably lead to an early end or - at the very least – to unintelligent behaviour.
Finding a middle ground at all times is far from the best possible option for a complete development. And compromise, especially when your main beliefs are implicated, is a slow-but-sure assassin.
The Helen Scarsdale Agency
The improvement of consciousness via abnormal sonorities is an aim that many composers have tried to achieve, with mixed results. Matt Waldron excels in the creation of extremely affecting soundscapes based on the concurrence and the management of sonic objects – on occasion, even ordinary ones - in contexts where urban or natural environmental factors and a general vibe of amorphousness exemplify a critical incidence. For this album, Waldron utilized found sounds whose origin or character can be associated, more or less directly, to the same configuration that inspires the whole concept. Springs, whirling air, washing of fluids, soil noises, someone’s steps: everything seamed in an organic continuum, gradually losing its quintessence to establish a sort of spontaneous pattern, the crucial resonance of these elements merged in a synthesis of hypnotically cyclical, bottomless pulses featuring human echoes, bewildering electronic intermissions, gargantuan breathing, stifling vapours derived from liquefied compatibilities.
The corrosion of faith, the dissolution of confidence, the determination to identify with “what comes after” way before the moment is due: this excursion through the meanders of psychoactive mutability causes these and other reactions, working much better than thousands of inadequate words, involuntarily succeeding in depicting the frenetically unsystematic activity of the brain during the REM phase, the instant in which a huge quantity of data appears, memories from current and past experiences jumbled in a typically disjointed hotchpotch.
The collaboration between Irr. App. (Ext.) and Nurse With Wound didn’t crop up by chance: there are indeed a few sections that vaguely hint to Steve Stapleton’s tortuously nightmarish impenetrability. Still, behind Kreiselwelle lies a manifestly individual logic that only a rigorously open-minded inspection is going to disclose in full. It’s a record one could easily get lost in; subsequent to the decoding process, though, we find ourselves incredibly close to the essential core of what sound and its connection with non-standard mental procedures represent for our existence to keep flowing without excessive traumas. A difficult yet imperative conception, indispensable for detaching a fundamental reality from those self-constructed psychological shelters that inevitably lead to an early end or - at the very least – to unintelligent behaviour.
Finding a middle ground at all times is far from the best possible option for a complete development. And compromise, especially when your main beliefs are implicated, is a slow-but-sure assassin.
The Helen Scarsdale Agency
Wednesday, 5 August 2009
JGRZINICH – Phase Inversion
Among the genuine masters of this game, acquired Estonian John Grzinich gives a showing of his strength with a gorgeous accumulation of drones and found objects, the latter mostly verging on the softly metallic/distantly clattering side of concreteness. The record presents exactly what was expected, this commentator well acquainted with a good number of the artist’s past releases (published on the best labels in this field, from Cut to Sirr, to Elevator Bath – you name it, he’s been there); yet there’s something distinguishing his work which is called class. I don’t know how to explain it, this has probably to do with a deeper perception of the vibrating particles of a particular source, or the shape of a chosen environment, or maybe just comes from a highly developed inner ear. A Jgrzinich drone sounds dissimilar from a regular buzzing hum: it appears more like the layering of a thousand desolate murmurs bathed in amniotic liquid.
The static façade hides hundreds of inherent movements, muted throbs, sub-harmonic changes that nevertheless make the whole sound as an immobile stifled choir, silently spreading resonances which, in conjunction with the dissipating energies represented by those faraway rattles and clangs, represent a memento of how to behave ourselves in front of the vague, a symbol of the unconcern we should always demonstrate when the worst is approaching, be it the fear of an uncertain future or the sheer notion of death. Perhaps a record like Phase Inversion could help someone to get in touch with that inside dimension which is inevitably left aside when one is intent in “living” by filling the brain with figments of imagination and innumerable illusions, only to be given a final bill at the end, still ill-equipped and even more frightened.
In actual fact, life itself is a phase inversion. On the contrary, many people are convinced of giving lessons to others, not realizing that what they believe to have “invented” is just the chewed-up remnant of a truth that everybody sees in a wholly individual way - all of them completely wrong - and that will finally rape everyone’s abstruse beliefs concerning human evolution and a presumed afterlife - not to mention reincarnation - except for the obvious transformation of the corporal matter into food for worms (or ash, if you’re sophisticated enough) and energy into some substance that might be useful or less, according to the quintessence of that erstwhile “being”.
Mystery Sea
The static façade hides hundreds of inherent movements, muted throbs, sub-harmonic changes that nevertheless make the whole sound as an immobile stifled choir, silently spreading resonances which, in conjunction with the dissipating energies represented by those faraway rattles and clangs, represent a memento of how to behave ourselves in front of the vague, a symbol of the unconcern we should always demonstrate when the worst is approaching, be it the fear of an uncertain future or the sheer notion of death. Perhaps a record like Phase Inversion could help someone to get in touch with that inside dimension which is inevitably left aside when one is intent in “living” by filling the brain with figments of imagination and innumerable illusions, only to be given a final bill at the end, still ill-equipped and even more frightened.
In actual fact, life itself is a phase inversion. On the contrary, many people are convinced of giving lessons to others, not realizing that what they believe to have “invented” is just the chewed-up remnant of a truth that everybody sees in a wholly individual way - all of them completely wrong - and that will finally rape everyone’s abstruse beliefs concerning human evolution and a presumed afterlife - not to mention reincarnation - except for the obvious transformation of the corporal matter into food for worms (or ash, if you’re sophisticated enough) and energy into some substance that might be useful or less, according to the quintessence of that erstwhile “being”.
Mystery Sea
Sunday, 2 August 2009
CELER – Capri
During a residency in the Italian island of Capri, Will and Danielle Long found the time – as they always did – to transform the experience into mesmerizing aural pictures which we now have the opportunity to get pleasure from, thanks to a new label from Berlin headed by Christian Roth. The sources utilized by Celer for this particular outing were piano, strings, horns, acoustic guitar, field recordings and “the warm breeze of the Mediterranean sea”. The latter constituent - which used to surround and energize yours truly over the course of ever-remembered adolescent summers spent in contemplation of that very marine environment, only from the shores of Tuscany – encircles the music in combination with a thicker-than-usual aura of recollection, embracing us all along 77 minutes flowing with nary a moment of tiredness. The calming effect of these short pieces equals the sense of silent yearning experienced in those tiny fragments of infinity in which levelheaded beings put the finger on a dolorous understanding of the invisible mechanisms regulating their internal temperament.
Capri’s tracks, taken as physical phenomena per se, confirm the amazingly rapid evolution of Celer’s artistic vision. What had started, years ago, as a not-completely-convincing assemblage of loops that could or could not work depending on the choice of the raw matters and the audience’s transitory inclinations, today has become the steady reiteration of a process of metamorphosis: personal experiences into sounds and, in turn, melancholically stirring emotions. It is not easy – except for a recurring piano-based “theme” – to individuate the original instruments under the haze of quiet resonance that the essential substances create, yet the value of this album lies right there: a series of blurred memories, vague images and formless reverberations contributing to deepen the regretful feel of another praiseworthy record which - after Dani’s precocious ascent to the sky - is even more aching to listen to and evaluate, although she remains clearly visible amidst this resounding fog.
Forced to designate a “darling release” for 2009 in the sphere of meaningful ambient/meditative electronica, this would definitely be one of the nominees, and the fact that this is a 400-copy limited edition should persuade the hesitant. You must learn the difference between those who were born to identify with vibrations and frequencies and the ones who invented a job for themselves without the necessary underpinning and, especially, profoundness.
Humming Conch
Capri’s tracks, taken as physical phenomena per se, confirm the amazingly rapid evolution of Celer’s artistic vision. What had started, years ago, as a not-completely-convincing assemblage of loops that could or could not work depending on the choice of the raw matters and the audience’s transitory inclinations, today has become the steady reiteration of a process of metamorphosis: personal experiences into sounds and, in turn, melancholically stirring emotions. It is not easy – except for a recurring piano-based “theme” – to individuate the original instruments under the haze of quiet resonance that the essential substances create, yet the value of this album lies right there: a series of blurred memories, vague images and formless reverberations contributing to deepen the regretful feel of another praiseworthy record which - after Dani’s precocious ascent to the sky - is even more aching to listen to and evaluate, although she remains clearly visible amidst this resounding fog.
Forced to designate a “darling release” for 2009 in the sphere of meaningful ambient/meditative electronica, this would definitely be one of the nominees, and the fact that this is a 400-copy limited edition should persuade the hesitant. You must learn the difference between those who were born to identify with vibrations and frequencies and the ones who invented a job for themselves without the necessary underpinning and, especially, profoundness.
Humming Conch
Sunday, 12 July 2009
ANDREW CHALK & DAISUKE SUZUKI – The Shadows Go Their Own Way
The time-honoured alliance between Chalk and Suzuki is enriched by a new episode - typically sheltered by a tenderly refined sleeve artwork - where aspects that sound a little more “present” or concrete, if you like, are explored preferentially as opposed to the wraithlike qualities of previous releases either by the duo or Chalk alone.
In general, the sounds and the overall mix are uncooked in a human way, showing an inclination for the material features of the surroundings: closely recorded motors, voices of people from the streets, cans, scraped metals giving shape to irregular drones. This is counterbalanced by quasi-oneiric sequences of organ/synthesizer and crickets in the sixth track, among the masterpieces of this fine disc, and rudimentarily poignant string melodies in the ninth and eleventh (all the tracks are untitled).
Sections characterized by the emblematic wonderful frailty expressed by these artists’ visions are not missing, though, and one welcomes the presence of gritty pictures of traditional instruments and a timidly humming woman like a comeback to the birthplace after many years, scents, lights and memories blurred in an indescribable sensation of belonging that is contrasted by the confirmation of the elapsing of existence, the distress deriving from the sureness that nothing will be back as we remembered it. These men are the rare possessors of a gift which allows them to reveal the purity that’s left inside sensitive beings, and that too frequently is forgotten in favour of opportunism and façade by the others.
It might take various spins of this apparently uneven record to understand, but the beauty that it irradiates is physical and often dolorous. You should remain overwhelmed in complete loneliness, as speaking with someone while this music spreads its wholesomeness in the air equals breaking an unrepeatable spell.
Siren
In general, the sounds and the overall mix are uncooked in a human way, showing an inclination for the material features of the surroundings: closely recorded motors, voices of people from the streets, cans, scraped metals giving shape to irregular drones. This is counterbalanced by quasi-oneiric sequences of organ/synthesizer and crickets in the sixth track, among the masterpieces of this fine disc, and rudimentarily poignant string melodies in the ninth and eleventh (all the tracks are untitled).
Sections characterized by the emblematic wonderful frailty expressed by these artists’ visions are not missing, though, and one welcomes the presence of gritty pictures of traditional instruments and a timidly humming woman like a comeback to the birthplace after many years, scents, lights and memories blurred in an indescribable sensation of belonging that is contrasted by the confirmation of the elapsing of existence, the distress deriving from the sureness that nothing will be back as we remembered it. These men are the rare possessors of a gift which allows them to reveal the purity that’s left inside sensitive beings, and that too frequently is forgotten in favour of opportunism and façade by the others.
It might take various spins of this apparently uneven record to understand, but the beauty that it irradiates is physical and often dolorous. You should remain overwhelmed in complete loneliness, as speaking with someone while this music spreads its wholesomeness in the air equals breaking an unrepeatable spell.
Siren
Saturday, 11 July 2009
ASHER - Miniatures
A double CD containing short looped fragments of past-time music for solo piano (with very rare exceptions), captured by Asher by having a recorder handy as the radio was on, in order to gather the segments that sounded more interesting for potential further manipulation. Two main characters emerging: the almost mournful, nostalgic unhappiness of the pieces, and an omnipresent sibilance that surrounds the whole, nearly claiming the attention on itself rather than the actual playing, a fundamental constituent of the record.
The risk of accustomedness is not present in Asher’s art, as it offers alternatives in an apparently immutable context, maintaining the bewitching qualities that have affirmed his style as distinctive. The listener is free to choose the direction in which interest should be focused. Are we going to be fossilized in deterioration together with the sound’s tendency to decay? Do we concentrate on the permanent hiss? Shall one try and determine what the original source is (in my case, unsuccessfully)? Is the cutting-and-looping technique our primary object of interest? There are lots of elements to consider for the guessing of crucial meanings. And - as usual - there’s underlying humanity throughout, in this circumstance explicated by the mere imagine of the artist’s readiness, perhaps at late night, to snatch these snippets when the moment is right. What were the thoughts he had in mind during that particular day? Were there grief and melancholy involved, or it was just an idea for experimentation? How did Asher manage to locate so many sweetly reflective spots in stylistically coherent pianistic performances?
What this man most importantly does is avoiding those clichés that, somehow preposterously, materialize when artists decide to utilize impracticality to push their work forward, typically ending in deplorable failures. This record gives a sense of firm ineluctability and tender frailty at once, eliciting doubts while confirming certainties. Its flimsy structure sounds evocatively irrepressible, a blurred sight that never disappears. It doesn’t help to disentangle from the inevitable, throwing the receiver in a mental state of confined childhood, admonishing about the excesses of enthusiasm. Invariability permeated with timid inhibitions and hopes ended in tatters that one’s still trying to recompose.
Sourdine
The risk of accustomedness is not present in Asher’s art, as it offers alternatives in an apparently immutable context, maintaining the bewitching qualities that have affirmed his style as distinctive. The listener is free to choose the direction in which interest should be focused. Are we going to be fossilized in deterioration together with the sound’s tendency to decay? Do we concentrate on the permanent hiss? Shall one try and determine what the original source is (in my case, unsuccessfully)? Is the cutting-and-looping technique our primary object of interest? There are lots of elements to consider for the guessing of crucial meanings. And - as usual - there’s underlying humanity throughout, in this circumstance explicated by the mere imagine of the artist’s readiness, perhaps at late night, to snatch these snippets when the moment is right. What were the thoughts he had in mind during that particular day? Were there grief and melancholy involved, or it was just an idea for experimentation? How did Asher manage to locate so many sweetly reflective spots in stylistically coherent pianistic performances?
What this man most importantly does is avoiding those clichés that, somehow preposterously, materialize when artists decide to utilize impracticality to push their work forward, typically ending in deplorable failures. This record gives a sense of firm ineluctability and tender frailty at once, eliciting doubts while confirming certainties. Its flimsy structure sounds evocatively irrepressible, a blurred sight that never disappears. It doesn’t help to disentangle from the inevitable, throwing the receiver in a mental state of confined childhood, admonishing about the excesses of enthusiasm. Invariability permeated with timid inhibitions and hopes ended in tatters that one’s still trying to recompose.
Sourdine
Tuesday, 16 June 2009
MECHANIQUE(S) – Logos
The components of this group share a proclivity to confounding the listeners in regard to the origin of the sonic matter they bring into being. Dafna Naphtali’s voice is processed by a computer running custom Max/MSP programs, its fundamental nature and a gazillion of refractions – altered, intermingled or just obsessively repeated – weighing exactly the same in the overall context. Martin Speicher’s alto sax and bass clarinet appear as pretty normal on a first approach, then non-conform wickedness and idiosyncratic impatience gradually become essential traits in the improvisational setting. As far as the “endangerment” of Hans Tammen’s guitar is concerned, much has already been written; suffice to say that one gathers very different interpretations of concepts such as “virtuosity”, “harmony” and “open-mindedness” after hearing what an instrument originally born with parlour purposes can do in the munificent hands of a bright manipulator.
Interested in “the overlap of various elements of their technical and aesthetical practices”, Mechanique(s) recorded this great disc in 2001 at Logos Foundation in Ghent, Belgium. That’s right, eight years have gone away meanwhile. But make no mistake – this music proudly shows no wrinkles, sounding as if taped two weeks ago. The musicians wander around structures that glitter as pure diamond and sound absurdly periphrastic at once, pretty distant from certain liturgical behaviours currently found in the reductionist faction of EAI. The improvisations exploit the single members’ total attentiveness in relation to the procedural possibilities, accomplished contortions crowded with sparse culminations, stomach-churning sneering and breathtaking apogees. The only way to escape the logic of rambling transparency shown by the trio is abandoning ourselves to a fantasy of timbral spitefulness, decomposed protocols and, ultimately, extraordinary complexity defining the absolute gratification of organisms ready to accept and swallow hundreds of consecutive contrasting messages that, miraculously, make the whole work like a perfectly oiled machine.
Emotions are hidden everywhere if we only want to find out - even behind warped sounds. There’s an urgent need to launch a repulisti of all the convention-derived encrustations of the intellect to realize what’s actually possible. This is much better than letting someone dictate the rules of your knowledge - in the name of an aim that does not exist – tracing a depressing trail according to which one arrives at the end of life without having done nothing meaningful or at least intelligent. Wasted time is not returned to anyone.
Acheulian Handaxe
Interested in “the overlap of various elements of their technical and aesthetical practices”, Mechanique(s) recorded this great disc in 2001 at Logos Foundation in Ghent, Belgium. That’s right, eight years have gone away meanwhile. But make no mistake – this music proudly shows no wrinkles, sounding as if taped two weeks ago. The musicians wander around structures that glitter as pure diamond and sound absurdly periphrastic at once, pretty distant from certain liturgical behaviours currently found in the reductionist faction of EAI. The improvisations exploit the single members’ total attentiveness in relation to the procedural possibilities, accomplished contortions crowded with sparse culminations, stomach-churning sneering and breathtaking apogees. The only way to escape the logic of rambling transparency shown by the trio is abandoning ourselves to a fantasy of timbral spitefulness, decomposed protocols and, ultimately, extraordinary complexity defining the absolute gratification of organisms ready to accept and swallow hundreds of consecutive contrasting messages that, miraculously, make the whole work like a perfectly oiled machine.
Emotions are hidden everywhere if we only want to find out - even behind warped sounds. There’s an urgent need to launch a repulisti of all the convention-derived encrustations of the intellect to realize what’s actually possible. This is much better than letting someone dictate the rules of your knowledge - in the name of an aim that does not exist – tracing a depressing trail according to which one arrives at the end of life without having done nothing meaningful or at least intelligent. Wasted time is not returned to anyone.
Acheulian Handaxe
Sunday, 7 June 2009
GIAMPAOLO VERGA - Fadensonnen
Giampaolo Verga - an Italian composer who is also actively involved in the encouragement of artistic creativity during the recovery processes of psychically disadvantaged persons – seems to be genuinely aware of the value of silence. With violin, voice and electronics he reveals what his mind is made of, meditating with semi-closed eyes at the farthest fringes of audibility, utilizing indistinct radiations, feeble reverberations and also acute frequencies to concoct electroacoustic settings that seize our concentration, often veritably enthralling in their mixture of profundity and legitimacy.
The rarefaction of the materials, the whispered straining of the sources, the timorous comparison between voices that we imagine deriving from lamenting ghosts and elongated percolations of frail instrumental sketches are just blurred suggestions of the essential traits of something that’s both unmistakably perceptible and manifestly indefinable, glimpses of silent commitment looking for liquids in serious acousmatic drought. With my windows open in a peaceful afternoon, remote urban presences and ever-singing birds making themselves heard from long distance, Fadensonnen sounds just perfect, at least until the sudden breakup of the final “Limbisch, Limbisch”, a startling – but not less interesting - departure from the general subject.
As opposed to certain Mediterranean tormentors who would like us to walk through interminable corridors of vacuous blessedness hiding bestial deficiency, this man discloses the hand and shows a few coins in the palm. It’s all he has, yet those little riches command respect, and could constitute the opening deposit for a future of insightful observations and, hopefully, significant intuitions.
Creative Sources
The rarefaction of the materials, the whispered straining of the sources, the timorous comparison between voices that we imagine deriving from lamenting ghosts and elongated percolations of frail instrumental sketches are just blurred suggestions of the essential traits of something that’s both unmistakably perceptible and manifestly indefinable, glimpses of silent commitment looking for liquids in serious acousmatic drought. With my windows open in a peaceful afternoon, remote urban presences and ever-singing birds making themselves heard from long distance, Fadensonnen sounds just perfect, at least until the sudden breakup of the final “Limbisch, Limbisch”, a startling – but not less interesting - departure from the general subject.
As opposed to certain Mediterranean tormentors who would like us to walk through interminable corridors of vacuous blessedness hiding bestial deficiency, this man discloses the hand and shows a few coins in the palm. It’s all he has, yet those little riches command respect, and could constitute the opening deposit for a future of insightful observations and, hopefully, significant intuitions.
Creative Sources
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