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, 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, 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
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