Neil Davidson/Michael Duch - Oera (Consumer Waste)

Intrigued by the unfamiliar term, I looked it up and could only find it used as the initial word of the Oera Linda Book, a tome of dubious provenance. A lovely word, in any case.

The first piece sets up a fine, continuous stream of sound, Davidson bowing his guitar rapidly (I assume it's a bow of some sort, but I could be entirely mistaken and that something else is being rubbed across the strings), Duch playing almost exclusively arco in longer, broader sweeps, creating a very rich web, sustained for some 18 minutes but with (relatively) minor variations in dynamics, tonality and harmonics abounding. There's even a point, late int he piece after a particularly deep drone has set in, that a handful of bass plucks recalls classic Charlie Haden. Excellent work. The second track is a far more astringent one, the guitar plucked, the bass bowed in high regions; ok, but the kind of thing routinely heard over the years. The third (all are untitled) is fuller, almost pastoral in a refreshing and hesitant way, deep short bowings by Duch buffeted by gentle but questioning strums from Davidson; both taut and sensitive. The last track returns to the general climes of the first, Dach bowing at a quicker pace, Davidson generating wonderful, high harmonics. Again, the tempo is maintained more or less throughout, the space completely carpeted. And again, the result is totally engrossing, time-suspending. Good stuff, likely my favorite music I've heard from either.

D'incise - Impermeability (Consumer Waste)

Apparently this is D'incise week on Just Outside, though this is a very different work from the one written about in my prior post. "Composed from recordings of sparkling liquids and gases", "Impermeability" is quite clearly just that. Most of the sounds, apparently presented several plies thick, are recognizable to those of us (everyone?) who have spent some moments delighted by the bubbling of sodas or the delicate expulsion of gases (all such recorded eruptions heard here are delicate!) from various sources. Even though the sounds derive from unrelated phenomenon, it's tough not to think of Lee Patterson's "Egg Fry #2" on Cathnor, but that had a single-minded focus which isn't the case or point here as D'incise is constructing his work much as is done routinely with field recordings. It's funny, but sometimes I even have the sense of a kind of gestural playing here, when one of the gases erupts in a bit of a flourish, like an errant saxophone...Finally, while entirely listenable, I find that I'd rather hear fewer sounds, with more concentration, than the cascade arrayed here. Still, it works well enough by its own lights and is an enjoyably fizzy quaff.

Consumer Waste