mpld - one more episode in between recollection and amnesia (unframed)

Six pieces from 2006 re-released (as also the one below) from an original edition of 10 via mpld (Gill Arno), most involving prepared slide projectors. After a brief, evocative inside-piano track, the projectors take over, casting an eerie kind of spell, somehow allowing for sound types that, in this world where you think you've heard everything, strike me as unusual. There's a range, to be sure, sometimes enhanced electronically (though perhaps always), tending toward a kind of rubbed hard rubber area amidst the metallic taps, maybe rubber-coated metal, the shell providing resonance, being ground against one another with serious pressure. Sometimes the projector as such exposes itself in fluttery, humming fashion--quite lovely and forceful. The 20 minute "four flashbacks" is especially evocative, helicoptering through the mist and smoke and dust. Very nice. A closing field recording merges seamlessly with the piece, drifting off. Beautiful cover image as well, culled from his live projector set-up.


Gill Arno - Nervatura (unframed)

For "Nervatura", Arno, on a visit to Chicago, drew on a map, following railway lines and traveled that route, recording along the way as well as picking up scraps of metal which he later heated and then placed on thermal-sensitive paper, one of the lovely results becoming the fold-out sleeve for this disc. Three pieces, each designated by map coordinates, which gain in strength over the course of the recording. Om the first, railway sounds predominate with trans on track and station bells, children's chatter mixed in. The second dwells in crowd noise, nicely immersive. It's the in the third that things really gel, become rather epic. Hollow sounds, water again, engines...a boat engine, I think. But then a hum enters the picture and just transforms things, elevates them. Not sure of the source, though they're reminiscent of ringing metal wires but whatever their origin, they perfectly glue together the engine thrums and distant metallic clanks. And at 19 minutes, it lasts precisely the right length.

Fine effort.

unframed