The sonic world of Gil Sansón - expressed in the eight movements of "La Montana Se Ha Ido" - is informed by subtly deployed field recordings and concrete matters rendered scarcely recognizable by the studio treatment; while certain chapters may result a little predictable, a couple of suburban soundscapes and the motionless solidity resulting from opportunely processed layers of environmental manifestations make sure that a degree of respectable acoustic artistry is maintained. Brian Mackern and Gabriel Galli close the show with a composition - "34s56w/Temporal De Santa Rosa" - containing Morse code messages, complex resonances and various kinds of unfathomable intrusion. Alarming atmospheres take shape from a rather static ground, the ensuing music more or less on the level of the best heard on the CD, enriched by a puzzling finale characterized by a vaguely familiar alien melody, transposed to progressively lower registers amidst incessant crackles and discharges.
Sunday, 27 June 2010
I8U / CHRISTOPHER DELAURENTI / GIL SANSÓN / BRIAN MACKERN AND GABRIEL GALLI - Physical, Absent, Tangible
Excellent materials on Richard Garet’s recently founded label, enclosed in an abundant hour of sounds suitable for concentration and active listening. i8u's "Rarefaction" consists of a humming drone (enhanced by virtually inaudible acute frequencies) whose corporeality and intensity changes with the passage of time. Think an earth loop/ultrasonic activity kind of palette with deeply booming surrounding pulses, imprinting the membranes quite effectively without shock or surprise. Just a nice and increasingly mesmerizing piece made with intelligence and good taste, splendidly functional in this early summer Sunday afternoon replete with chirping sparrows and chattering wrens around the house. On an entirely different note, Christopher Delaurenti first subjects us to the strident ejections and electrically morphing ambiences typifying "Sigil", then contributes to the improvement of our aural awareness in the longer "Nictating" via whooshing loops of whispered post-industrialism that repudiate colour in favour of mechanical pulse and grey mist, until a series of slowly declining electronic arcs and a few subterranean murmurs appear, ending the track on a slightly anguishing hue.
The sonic world of Gil Sansón - expressed in the eight movements of "La Montana Se Ha Ido" - is informed by subtly deployed field recordings and concrete matters rendered scarcely recognizable by the studio treatment; while certain chapters may result a little predictable, a couple of suburban soundscapes and the motionless solidity resulting from opportunely processed layers of environmental manifestations make sure that a degree of respectable acoustic artistry is maintained. Brian Mackern and Gabriel Galli close the show with a composition - "34s56w/Temporal De Santa Rosa" - containing Morse code messages, complex resonances and various kinds of unfathomable intrusion. Alarming atmospheres take shape from a rather static ground, the ensuing music more or less on the level of the best heard on the CD, enriched by a puzzling finale characterized by a vaguely familiar alien melody, transposed to progressively lower registers amidst incessant crackles and discharges.
The sonic world of Gil Sansón - expressed in the eight movements of "La Montana Se Ha Ido" - is informed by subtly deployed field recordings and concrete matters rendered scarcely recognizable by the studio treatment; while certain chapters may result a little predictable, a couple of suburban soundscapes and the motionless solidity resulting from opportunely processed layers of environmental manifestations make sure that a degree of respectable acoustic artistry is maintained. Brian Mackern and Gabriel Galli close the show with a composition - "34s56w/Temporal De Santa Rosa" - containing Morse code messages, complex resonances and various kinds of unfathomable intrusion. Alarming atmospheres take shape from a rather static ground, the ensuing music more or less on the level of the best heard on the CD, enriched by a puzzling finale characterized by a vaguely familiar alien melody, transposed to progressively lower registers amidst incessant crackles and discharges.
Thursday, 24 June 2010
HAPTIC - Trebuchet
The operational area for Haptic – Steven Hess, Adam Sonderberg and Joseph Clayton Mills - is that of mesmeric elusiveness informed by a measure of physicality, causing a feel of anticipation for an event that might materially occur, but we'll never be able to realistically justify. There's no credible method to describe the acoustic phenomena that the trio engenders, if not by trusting adjectives that by now sound stereotyped, when not plain worn out: organic, tactile, laminal, throbbing. All hopeless attempts to seize what’s uncatchable.
Quite often, this sagaciously deployed mix of treated field recordings and unspecified instruments contains sounds that are more similar to the amplified version of certain indiscernible frequencies emitted by the insides of our ear than to the different external examples that one could muster. The layered clusters of harmonics - equally effective in an enticing segment like the introductive “Counterpoise” and in the development of the cryptic scenarios heard in “Three” - enrich sonic topographies mainly expressed through a low-definition mantric inertia, finding a reference point (admittedly vague) in artistic realities such as Andrew Chalk and Christoph Heemann's late Mirror. On the other hand, the third and longest chapter “Four” is constructed with mildly interfering matters, actual essences (am I hearing concealed firecrackers and bell towers in there, together with the helicopters?) and granular crunch submerged by subsonic tremors, at times calling to mind environments rendered well-known by Asher. Haptic do possess their own nature, though, which is beautiful to ascertain upon repeated spins.
Ultimately, the quality of Trebuchet is directly proportional to its capacity of "freezing" the listener and, along the process, making the brain work in a subliminal way. The awesome muted hums appear as a memento of the decaying aspects of intellect, finely contrasted by the purity of the screaming children appearing in the disc's very last seconds, as to represent the new beginning of a cycle that once was believed to be endless and instead is about to be broken by something ineluctable.
Quite often, this sagaciously deployed mix of treated field recordings and unspecified instruments contains sounds that are more similar to the amplified version of certain indiscernible frequencies emitted by the insides of our ear than to the different external examples that one could muster. The layered clusters of harmonics - equally effective in an enticing segment like the introductive “Counterpoise” and in the development of the cryptic scenarios heard in “Three” - enrich sonic topographies mainly expressed through a low-definition mantric inertia, finding a reference point (admittedly vague) in artistic realities such as Andrew Chalk and Christoph Heemann's late Mirror. On the other hand, the third and longest chapter “Four” is constructed with mildly interfering matters, actual essences (am I hearing concealed firecrackers and bell towers in there, together with the helicopters?) and granular crunch submerged by subsonic tremors, at times calling to mind environments rendered well-known by Asher. Haptic do possess their own nature, though, which is beautiful to ascertain upon repeated spins.
Ultimately, the quality of Trebuchet is directly proportional to its capacity of "freezing" the listener and, along the process, making the brain work in a subliminal way. The awesome muted hums appear as a memento of the decaying aspects of intellect, finely contrasted by the purity of the screaming children appearing in the disc's very last seconds, as to represent the new beginning of a cycle that once was believed to be endless and instead is about to be broken by something ineluctable.
Saturday, 12 June 2010
MATHIEU RUHLMANN – Gravity Controls Our Myths
A fascinating title introduces the latest outing by Canadian Mathieu Ruhlmann, who’s been active for many years in the sonic fields where fading memories, concrete elements and awareness of the impossibility of changing a life’s destiny meet, often with deeply affecting results. This is an ideal case in point, an impressive work where everything is more or less recognizable but we can’t really put a finger on what’s being listened to. Gravity Controls Our Myths diffused its fumes incessantly this afternoon: unobvious messages directed to the archive of consciousness that keeps discoloured postcards of mournful reminiscences inside, ready to be taken out as a certain scent or a particular reverberation emerge.
This music is like a sizeable rock held in the hands of a kid standing in front of a deep sea. You keep observing it under the sun and it’s a familiar enough object, then – once thrown down in the water – the contour gradually loses definition, rapidly becoming an unevenly blurred vision. The same happens with the sequences of images that Ruhlmann presents: they may be starting from the most normal activity – sounds that you’re sure of knowing, yet still don’t attempt to describe in fear of a poor figure. Human and animal components are definitely predominant - even the sighs emitted by an infant inserted amidst nocturnal faunas and all kinds of manual tampering, environmental and urban echoes and domestic banality functioning as magic powder for foggy evocations (“On The Fabric You Shine, Latern”, “Nest”).
Simple fragments of melody played on a slightly detuned piano are accompanied by a sort of indistinct chorale in “The Sea Of The Spirit”, among the album’s absolute tops, also shaped by additional natural materiality and distantly echoing drones that come and go from the mix. Such a kind of piece is what convinces me that this is one of the finest statements released by this composer, a reminder of individual vulnerability if we ever needed another. It surely deserves a responsive audience, comprising those who can appreciate the value of an open wound.
Semper Florens
This music is like a sizeable rock held in the hands of a kid standing in front of a deep sea. You keep observing it under the sun and it’s a familiar enough object, then – once thrown down in the water – the contour gradually loses definition, rapidly becoming an unevenly blurred vision. The same happens with the sequences of images that Ruhlmann presents: they may be starting from the most normal activity – sounds that you’re sure of knowing, yet still don’t attempt to describe in fear of a poor figure. Human and animal components are definitely predominant - even the sighs emitted by an infant inserted amidst nocturnal faunas and all kinds of manual tampering, environmental and urban echoes and domestic banality functioning as magic powder for foggy evocations (“On The Fabric You Shine, Latern”, “Nest”).
Simple fragments of melody played on a slightly detuned piano are accompanied by a sort of indistinct chorale in “The Sea Of The Spirit”, among the album’s absolute tops, also shaped by additional natural materiality and distantly echoing drones that come and go from the mix. Such a kind of piece is what convinces me that this is one of the finest statements released by this composer, a reminder of individual vulnerability if we ever needed another. It surely deserves a responsive audience, comprising those who can appreciate the value of an open wound.
Semper Florens
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