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

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