Tim Feeney - Burrow (Marginal Frequency)

Percussionist Feeney seems to have been developing a new kind of minimalist approach in recent years, never before shown to as clear and excellent effect as on this cassette release. Two pieces, each 28-29 minutes long, each divided into segments sporting their own instruments. He first taps out a steady, quick rhythm on wooden sticks--I say "steady" but that's not strictly true as the pace fluctuates slightly and the tone deviates as well, presumably from the sticks being struck at various distances from Feeney's hands. Throughout, I'm unsure how much of the rhythmic variation is intentionally, how much due to fatigue or, as I suspect, there's a forgone accession to aspects of fatigue that Feeney knows will enliven the piece. After six or so minutes, he switches to a drum of some kind, maintaining both a similar beat and, again, varying the pitch by, in this instance, striking the drumhead at various distances from its center. I should emphasize that  all of these sounds exist in a very space, very pure, even dry atmosphere. It's just them and the room, quite bracing. This pattern continues with pieces of metal (loose and clangy), a hollow-sounding drum (wherein the pace becomes quite slow, the sound muted at a point), more metal (stiffer and less resonant, sometimes blurring the boundary--excellently--between "playing" and "beating") and concluding with some double-time on a drum with (guessing) some metal atop. There's a certain kind of benign brutalism in play that I love. A brilliant recording, highly recommended.

Marginal Frequency

Grundik Kasyansky/Danil Gertman - Insect Angel (Llull Machines)

Kasyansky and Gertman are an audio/visual duo. Though my impression is that, live, Gertman works in a video format, he's a figurative painter, responsible for the cover image above and, as an example selected more or less at random, paintings like this one:

Kasyansky's music here is a kind of bumpy drone, winding, throbbing layers of electronics, not overly dense but resonant, all of it circling over a steady, muted beat. There's an interesting, semi-regular sound that lurks below the surface, sounding like a rotating machine that's slightly off-kilter, generating a set of soft taps when one of its sides rubs up against something it's not designed to. The main sounds shift ever so slightly over the course of the piece's 40 minutes, becoming more growly but essentially, we're in one territory for the duration. It's fine, very accommodating and easy enough to wallow in but I wanted to hear more change or depth and the pulse, after a while, begins to wear. It might well work better (for me) in a live context with imagery. But you can hear for yourself at Kasyansky's bandcamp site, linked to below.

Kasyansky