Cremaster/Angharad Davies - Pluie fine (Potlatch)

A welcome drizzle indeed. Davies' violin is a fine choice to augment the gents of Cremaster (Ferran Fages, feedback mixing board, electro-acoustic devices and Alfredo Costa-Monteiro, similar devices, speakers, electric guitar). When listening to her music or that of Cremaster, words like "sandy" and "sere" often come to mind, but not so much dryness; there are always layers, some containing tinges of moisture, maybe a little clay...That clayey feel is front and center here in a recording suffused with fine timbres and just enough implicit structure to cohere over the long run.

How to describe? there's a kind of inexorable grind to it; retaining the desert imagery, I think of the giant sandworms of Arrakis, that they might have produced the sounds heard on "embrun", the first track here. The resonant whine, amplified down cavernous, miles-long, grit-filled tunnels. The moans could be death throes or orgasmic sighs...wonderful piece, would love to experience its like in a live situation.

"bruine" is shriller and maintains a wavering but fairly consistent tone throughout. It's strong, though, and "little" things like the short washes of brushed cymbal-like sounds (I assume electronically produced) carry great weight, swathe the piercing tone in just enough chamois until it expands outwards, accumulating mass and detritus as it does so. Again, a fine work. Things grow somewhat more jagged with "crachin", hard crystals jutting out from the side of those tunnels, gouging one's thighs, dust stinging one's eyes. As with much of this work, there's a vastness at hand, a massive volume of space created, odd given the seeming thinness of much of the sound material. I pick up a bit of the divine rawness of Xenakis' electronic work in this one.

"pluie fine"--excellent recording, perhaps my favorite from those involved, which is saying something.

Potlatch

available from erst dis