Philip Sulidae - History of Violence (Unfathomless)

Using a loaded title like "History of Violence" (and, presumably, not referring to the Cronenberg film of almost the same name), one expects to hear som eallusions to the subject but, if they're here, I have difficulty ascertaining any. Not so important, I guess, but the field recordings captured and massaged by Sulidae Belanglo State Forest in New South Wales, Australia don't directly refer to anything violent. One assumes the violence in question is more general, that is, damage to the flora and fauna of the area at the hands of humans. The sounds seem to have, generally, natural origins, from the opening mosquito-like whines of "Bargo" through the requisite swarms, chirps, etc., most enswathed in a kind of sonic cloud that gives the affair a muted, blurred aspect which I imagine is the intended effect but that makes much of the work somewhat indistinguishable from other field recordings of the "natural" world. "Slow dusk near long acre fire trail" seems to contain phonograph noise, maybe an ironic commentary on the wildlife sounds around it, or captured on it? By itself, this track is the one I found most moving, that and the moment near the end of the title track when muffled voices emerge from the blur.

Unfathomless

Socrates Martinis - North (More Mars)

A 3" disc accompanied by a booklet containing poetic text and illustrations. It's a very personal document, including the music, even as it's made up of three skeins of grainy electronics: a short, loud burst that peters out in seconds, a few minutes of steamier, damper sound, as of a large, interior generator of some kind, and ten or so minutes of a more grinding, dirty sound, reminiscent of a large device in need of oil. Abstract but strangely intimate, no more, no less. the poems (in Greek typescript as well as English) seem to similarly straddle some border between distanced and closely felt, for example: Light that spills/and rhythmically emits odors of milk/with the voice of steam locomotive engines. The five ink paintings are like personal signs or totems, again quite inward looking, bearing an aura of meaning all but unknowable to the viewer. Very interesting and, ultimately, strangely alluring work.

More Mars

Peter Streiff - Komposition/Urs Peter Schneider - Klavier (Edition Wandelweiser)

I thought I'd use a photo of Streiff instead of the cover of the disc which, of course, isn't any different from all Wandelweisers, save the specifics. Though the compositions are Streiff's you get the idea that Schneider is being given equal credit for the realization, causing me to wonder a bit at the degree of freedom the latter had, especially given the apparent nature of the pieces which, I have to say, I feel somewhat ill-equipped to evaluate. I mean, I like them very much, find much of the work quite beautiful, but I've the feeling of being in over my head, the music seeming to operate in a "classical" context that's far enough outside my experiential frames so as to render nil any judgments I can make.

Strangely, one of the impressions I had, was of a composer, a "serious" classical composer, sort of doodling at the keyboard. This is not meant in the slightest to be disparaging--just the opposite. There's a sense of wonder at the image of these figures just flowing out, seemingly without forethought. Not improvisations as such, more a sketching out of forms within a few frameworks, works in progress, ideas to be fleshed out. None of this is the case, clearly, though that conflict of the image I'm holding with what I know (or assume) to be the reality is also very fascinating. Apologies for the blather, tough to sort out.

Brief notes are provided for each piece, fairly impressionistic ones like, "Recognizable fuzziness, hidden clarity, a simple development" or "Agitation within, shifts at the margins". Whether any systems were in place, how much space Schneider (who plays gorgeously throughout) was allowed, I don't know. The music unspools slowly, even languorously, is more or less tonal for the most part, edging into pastoral now and then. There's the occasional nod to minimalism, but that's rare. Maybe a tinge of Satie's Rosicrucian period, not sure. Some verges on the strident, some is dreamy. It sounds both plain and unique; odd. There's a short portion of "Neun kleine Bässe" with six softly descending notes, a couple of blurred lower tones, a squiggle of mid-range ones that's haunting, eerie and wonderful.

So, apologies for the mishmash of a write-up. Please disregard the confusion here and simply listen for yourself--it's excellent music.

Wandelweiser

Also available via Erst Dist

Thomas Stiegler/Hannes Seidl - das wetter in offenbach (Edition Wandelweiser)

The notes for this piece are entirely in German and, after running them through the vagaries of Google Translate, I still have only the roughest of ideas as to the ideas behind the work, so I'm tempted to simply go by what my ears tell me. Suffice it to say that t has something to do with bicycle trips by Stiegler to the town of Offenbach (nothing to do with the composer as far as I know), the sounds encountered and also, possibly, the sounds of certain medical equipment. Who, of Stiegler and Seidl, contribute what, I've no idea.

The construction lasts for forty minutes, most of it taken up by field recorded sounds interspersed with a smooth, electric hum (not sure of the source, presumably computer or synth) whose pitch fluctuates slightly but which retains its general character throughout. It comes, lingers for several seconds, ends; sometimes it overlaps the other sounds, sometimes it stands alone. Every so often, you can pick up a quieter tone as well; perhaps there are more layers than meet the ear. In the interim, we hear various "everyday" sounds ranging widely and including crunchy footsteps, car and water sounds, geese quacks (quite a flurry at one point), airy fields. It's calm, with a sense of patient forward movement consistent with a relaxed bike ride. The listener settles into this travelogue and it's quite pleasant. Around the 34-minute mark, just after you've experienced a series of gently iterative mechanical sounds, possibly some of that medical equipment in action, the scene shifts drastically. Very much as if the CD in your player has suddenly changed, you hear a funky disco-ish line, not recorded in the field, but pure; very disorienting. It dissolves in less than a minute, first overlaid with discreet hums, a muffled voice, then replaced by some backwards tape, that familiar hum. It's almost as though one has been biking in the rural countryside, engaged in a reverie, only to find oneself back in urbanity without realizing it. Despite the hum, the last several minutes have a different character, including a set of dull, metallic clangs,before automotive noise ends the piece abruptly.

It's an odd work, with its own unique if awkward sound-logic. I found myself enjoying it pretty well though I'm still unsure if I've comprehended it decently.

Wandelweiser

Also available via Erst Dist

Urs Peter Schneider - Kompositionen 1973-1986 (Edition Wandelweiser)

The structure of this 2-disc set is durationally symmetrical, four pieces lasting (more or less) 8, 60, 60 and 8 minutes. I've no idea how representative this sample is of Schneider's work (I think it's my first experience of it) but there seems to be at least something of a common thread int he way he uses quasi-repetition of forms (not in a minimalist sense) that, over time, result in something larger than the individual elements.

"Zeitgehöft" (the title of a collection of poetry by Paul Celan, generally translated as "Timestead") is for two pianos that sound retuned (maybe only one of them?) and consists of strong, dark, rounded chords, somewhat staccato though with silences between allowing the notes to sustain in the room. Initially opaque, the resolute continuation of the particular attack succeeds, for me, in creating a special world with odd logic, where the stuttering steps can be heard as a kind of hesitant dance. This piece grew on me each time I listened, very moving ultimately.

"Sternstunde" (great moment) is an astrological term and the six movements alternate between "Ahriman" and "Luzifer", the former a Zoroastrian deity and the latter, well, Lucifer. It's scored for two speaker and two singers (male and female in each duo) with two other musicians providing "noise. The latter occurs in sweeping, wavelike sounds that occur between movements, imparting a very cleansing sense. The distribution of the text between speakers and singers is extremely effective (not sure if there's overdubbing or if substantial use of the echoing aspect of the performing space is in play, but the vocal sound is wonderfully cloudy and rich); it sounds as though there's a kind of "round" in effect, the cycles of each part ever so often coming into sync, almost unison, then going out of phase, back again and so forth for the entire hour. It's sung/spoken in a kind of declamatory style, with a regular, even plodding meter, though that's part of the mesmerizing effect. Apart from the change in text, there's only slight variation in the musical approach, though minimal as it may seem, certain sections are noticeably more "transparent" than others. As implied above, the sheer accumulation of this attack, and maybe a subconscious appreciation of the underlying logical structure) tells over time. Soon you've become quite accepting of this world. I think the text is from Christian Friedrich Hebbel, a 19th century German poet, though I can't find any direct reference for it. I have to say, although it won me over, I could easily understand if the relentlessness of the approach caused other to find it wearying.

"Meridian", based once again on Celan, is tougher for me to grasp. Less overtly obsessive than the two prior works, we hear a succession of episodes (again, six), with strings playing microtonal glissandi (inevitably, due to my having first encountered it there, I think of Penderecki), rather disembodied voices, tympani, piano and more. There's a lot going and doubtless much I'm not apprehending but, while the passing moments often convey an odd, hazy kind of beauty, I can't get to the logic of the piece and leave unsatisfied. Might require a guide on this one.

"Augenhöhe" (eyes high) cites Hebbel but mirrors the first in an oblique way, consisting of short phrases played by Dominik Blum on a Hammond organ, sixteen or so quick, fleeting notes (possibly always all different?), placed between periods of silence lasting about sixteen seconds. The phrases are as playful as they are seemingly random, bouncing gaily and, given the silences, acquiring a subtly plaintive air. Quirky, elfin and lovely.

Wandelweiser

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Rasmus Borg/Henrik Munkeby Nørstebø - 120112 (Edition Wandelweiser)

Sometimes Wandels appear with substantial info about scores of methods of actualization, sometimes not. Here, there's only the cryptic inscription, "entrusted to each other from the outset, at each other's mercy" which, to me, implies improvisation, though who knows? Whatever the case, the three pieces presented by Borg (piano) and Nørstebø (trombone) are spellbinding explorations of the low tone.

Three pieces but they segue into one another effortlessly and, with the possible exception of slight variation in pitch (and I'm not even sure of that) are pretty much indistinguishable from each other unless I missing some subtle pattern shift. The sounds are all low and sustained--bottom of the keyboard piano and extremely low trombone (the disc says, simply, "trombone", though it sounds like, at least, a bass trombone to me). The trombone tones aren't quite Malfatti-pure; sometimes they begin with a slight growl, others with a half-step upswing, but they're routinely very rich and luscious. Sometimes, the pair start a phrase more or less in unison, usually with a slightly staggered entry, but often enough one or the other enters an existing line, melding in, playing a pitch very close to that of his partner. It's a very round sound, globular even, suspended among the near-silences. Listened to closely, you can pick up ambient noise, little clicks, bumps and the like, small but for me important in surrounding the music with a kind of sheath, giving substance to the air in the studio. It's difficult to say much more than that. The pieces don't really have a monolithic quality, but they're all rather (beautifully) self-similar, more like an underground seam, coal perhaps. I really enjoy it.

Wandelweiser

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Daniel Lercher/Henrik Munkeby Nørstebø - TH_X (Chmafu)

As it happens, fate also delivered into my hands another recording involving Nørstebø, a collaboration with Daniel Lercher (sinusoids, resonators, filtered red noise). "Red noise", I discovered, is also known as "Brownian noise" (as opposed to brown noise), that is, waves whose structure is (somehow) determined via Brownian motion. Nørstebø, here, initially explores similar, low-pitched areas for the most part, although Lercher's contributions, of course, are much different than Borg's, consisting at first of strong sine-like waves, pulsating and fluttering and, I suspect, doing funny things with regard to how the trombone is heard (though there may be some flutter occurring there as well. The pair splay outward from that on subsequent tracks, Lercher especially delving into more ragged, drier tones (the red noise, I'm guessing) and crisp pops, eventually ultra-harsh swathes of noise. Things continue to splay out as though, once released, boundaries are forgotten. It's a heady mix, Nørstebø's trombone becoming less recognizable as he plunges into breath/rumble territory, the electronics going more and more abstract, crackling, ragged. The last of the five cuts circles back, beginning in the storm then flowing back into the purer sine tones and hyper-deep brass that began the disc. Strong music, well worth hearing, also causing me to want to listen to far more of their work.

Chmafu

(Various) - West Coast Soundings (Edition Wandelweiser)

A compilation of work by twelve composers, ten of whom studied with James Tenney and/or Michael Pisaro (who are also represented by pieces here) at Cal Arts, performed by a quintet (or parts thereof) consisting of Frank Gratkowski (bass clarinet, clarinet, alto sax, radio, triangle), Seth Josel (electric guitars, mandolin, radio, triangle), hans w. koch (electronics, radio, triangle), Anton Lukoszevieze (cello, triangle, radio, voice) and Lucia Mense (a range of recorders from sopranino to contrabass, radio, triangle). One of the heartening aspects, in a sense, is how far many of the works "stray" from a Wandelweiser aesthetic--it's always good to hear evolution outwards. A brief description of each work:

Mark So, segue (2007) - Long, soft lines, very warm, in an interesting, kind of prismatic relationship with the clearly spoken text ("Segue", by z. Laurence-Juan)-THe lines are lovely and relate to the text in non-obvious, haunting ways, occasionally splintering softly into frayed endings.

Michael Winter - small world (2008) - More aurally fragmented and diverse (apparently constructed via graphs and game theory) with disparate elements calmly meshed, even as the elements themselves are thorny, almost strident and eruptive. A collage feeling but also oneiric.

Chris Kallmyer - Between the Rhine and Los Angeles (2012) - Performed here by electronics and electric guitar, from a score in which the musicians are asked to trace the form of a river, resulting in a rich, twisty drone that hovers now and then, meanders off. Nice thickness of tones, often more going on than is immediately apparent, drawing me back a few times after I mistakenly thought I'd heard it thoroughly.

Tashi Wada - Nest (2008) - Realized here for recorders, clarinet and cello, along with field recordings by Wada. koch's note says "accentuating the tonal content of field recordings" and you can feel that approach, the musicians searching for some affinities with the birdsong, rustle and background hum of the site recordings, like a chamber trio enhancement of Pisaro's "Transparent City" series. Very beautiful.

James Tenney - Harmonium #1 (1976) - for quartet, excluding koch's electronics. A gorgeous work, all long shifting lines, endlessly subtle and complex planes of interaction. I wasn't sure if I'd ever heard the piece before (I'm unforgivably behind in my Tenney) so I found a version on-line by the Trio Scordatura, also very beautiful, but I enjoy this one more. Great work.

Liam Mooney - 180° (2011) - For dry ice and triangles. As I learned courtesy Casey Anderson, sublimating dry ice can somehow activate resonant surface if held just barely above them (a buzzing sound occasionally heard here, occurs if you come too close). It's a wonderful sound, a kind of ringing, metallic rattle, constantly in flux and we get to soak in it for 18 minutes here. This is "all" that happens--steady-state on the one hand, endlessly varying on the other; I love it.

Scott Cazan - Outliers (2010) - Per the notes, Cazan "employs a computer, gradually reducing available pitches by filtering out ones that have been heard". As played by the quartet (again, sans electronics). The work is calm on the surface, even stately, though a subtle sense of agitation grows as, I presume, the palette is reduced. Fascinating process, engaging music.

Laura Steenberge - Waltz (2013) - a dark, eerie waltz, with low cello and woodwind chords and sharp guitar plinks. Probably the most "traditional" piece here in some ways, quite cinematic in an expressionist way.

Catherine Lamb - Frames (2009/2013) - For grand bass recorder and cello. Lamb's swiftly become one of my favorite composers around and this work simply buttresses that feeling. It involves investigations of tuning played out in long lines but the magic lies in the poetry of choices, the sheer deliciousness of the note pairings, the overlapped, irregular durations, the grain in both instruments. As they say, worth the price of admission on its own. Beautiful.

Quentin Tolimieri - Trio (2013) - Clarinet, guitar and cello. It nods to a kind of post-serial, lyrical abstraction but then begins to dissemble that, the sounds becoming more and more sparse, eventually leaving substantial silences. There's a fine progression from the "normality" of the beginning to the poignancy and sense of abandonment at the conclusion that makes the work very beguiling and moving.

Casey Anderson - possible dust (2011) For five radios, very un-Wandelweiserian, exposing a wooly chaos of sounds from radios that sound randomly tuned (and frequently changed) but I imagine there's a system in place somewhere. In-between-stations static abounds, with speech (German) next in line, only the odd snatch of pop music. In this context, it serves as a bracing tonic but stands firmly enough on its own.

Michael Pisaro - A single charm is doubtful (Gertrude Stein) (2005) - Part of the Harmony series, played here by, once again, the quartet without koch. As ever, wonderful music; somewhat more forceful than you might anticipate, the recorder very much up front, gilding the sustained cello and alto saxophone, all (with the guitar) creating an emergent pulse amidst the long, long tones. Absolutely stunning, especially in its sense of time negation. It just continues on until it stops.

A fine collection then, one that's obviously necessary if you've the remotest interest in this area of music and, for me, extra valuable for exposing me to music created by composers of whom I've had no or very little previous experience.

wandelweiser

Available in the US from Erst Dist

Wind Rose - Lamentations (Amusements Banales)

"Wind Rose" is Gary James Joynes and 'Lamentations' is a set of dark, relentless electronic drones created while in mourning for the death of his father. This fact necessarily calls to mind Jason Lescalleet's brilliant, 'The Pilgrim' but Joynes' approach is different, conjuring a sound-world almost entirely grim and, despite the plodding onwards evoked by the steady pulse (in the first track), purposeless, perhaps seething with some rage. The following cut is even bleaker, the sounds having taken on the mechanical aspect of a piece of large machinery, mindlessly cycling, eventually sputtering out. 'Arrival', the third track, is more agitated, itchy even, with rapid iterations of growl and static, but no less desolate. Then, about halfway through, it's knocked out of kilter and sent into a loose spin, a slow free fall that at least seems to offer a possible path out of the claustrophobic gears and turbines, edging into "An Index of Metals" terrain. In the final piece, 'Translation', things begin to churn, a certain kind of vital power seems to be generated. It slows however, begins grinding down, takes on the sense of a small airplane descending. No way out.

Amusements Banales

Lunt - water belongs to the night (Tremens Archives)

Lunt is Gilles Deles and this recording is rather the polar opposite of the preceding one. The label cites Fred Frith and Rafael Toral as influences and that can certainly be heard here, especially the mid-70s Frith of his initial solo release, an old favorite of mine. The first track also, I have to say, nods to Fripp/Eno but, as much as I love those recordings, i was happy to hear that Deles moves on from that attractive clime. A piece like "Stumbling Crystal" is Frithian, true, with it's spiky, ice shards delicately arrayed, but it's so inherently attractive that I forced myself out of an "influential" mode of appraisal and just enjoyed it. Still, I was also happy to hear a harsher tack taken on the ensuing cut, "Poison goes back to the ground", and even happier when Deles pulls out the stops on "Golem of fire", channelling Fripp to a degree but, again, doing it quite well. He gets harsher still on the penultimate track, ending in a stuttering, staticky grind, but ties things up peacefully on the final piece, with soft, echoey plucking that, again, isn't earthshaking in approach but is done with taste and a fine ear. If that branch of guitarists appeals to you (as it does me), you'll find this an enjoyable listen.

Tremens Archive (bandcamp)

LP round-up, part deux

Slobodan Kajkut -The Art of Living Dies (God)

A work for solo, amplified cello, performed here by Michael Moser.

The label site offers the description, "Lack of musical material, minimalism but not for it's purposes" and that's not a bad encapsulation. The music consists of sets of phrases, always bowed, generally discrete. The initial sounds are one to five note lines, each note discrete, no obvious pattern. The air is dark, somber, the notes low but dry. Almost inevitably, one conjures up the image of a lone entity in an unlit space; "Beckettian" seems too easy, but hard to avoid. Over the course of the LP, Moser's attack varies, but not too much--a section will have slightly higher, grainier tones (that recalled some of Feldman for me), but things inevitably settle back into that sort of disengaged area where "mournful" would be too strong a term. Resigned, maybe. Yet, pace Beckett, it goes on, never to any point but incapable of doing otherwise, one desolate step at a time. The sounds themselves are easily digested but the overall effect is, intentionally I suspect, oppressive, gathering force by sheer dint of the relentless refusal to accommodate. It's quite persuasive in this regard and I have to admire Kajkut's (and Moser's) steadfastness. Strong medicine, good work.

God

Peter Kutin - Burmese Days (Gruenrekorder)

I haven't read the Orwell novel from which this LP takes it's title though, I'm guessing, it shares that author's concerns about Western imperialism in Southeast Asia, even if abstracted beyond direct reference points. Kutin (field recordings), here, is assisted by Berndt Thurner on Burmese metallophones and Dieb 13 on electronics and turntables, melding their instrumental compositions with his recordings to form the two side-long works. And they sound pretty great, some of the finer integrations of field and instrumental sounds I've heard in a while. I'm guessing this likely due to Kutin's skills at composing the material but surely at least in part a result of the reticence of Thurner's and Dieb 13's contributions which routinely remain at a low level in the mix, often nearly indistinguishable from the found sounds. The whole affair is rather subdued but very alive and subtly colorful, seething with a quiet pulse, from the opening chitters of insects (accompanied, I think, by Dieb 13's stuttering electronics), through attenuated near silences bearing faint hums, through cloudy, zone-tinged climes with muffled drums, voices, those metallophones. It' a heady journey, especially Side One, murkily cinematic, unsettling and all-around excellent. Don't pass on this one, it's a really fine realization.

Gruenrekorder

Thomas Tilly - Le Cébron/Statics and sowers (Aussenraum)

Fitting, I suppose, that a record, half of which chronicles the shattering of ice, should be pressed on clear plastic.

Side One documents said breakage, recorded on the shores of Lake Cébron in France, ably assisted by a trio of shatterers. The combined crackling sound of the destructive process necessarily includes the sense of watery ambiance, a lovely combination. Tilly maintains that, apart from a "slight equalization no electronic modification has been done" which makes the sounds all the more astonishing, seeming, as many of them do, to have been culled from an elaborate and dense bit of INA GRM-y software. There's a minimal sense of the surrounding air, much more of a feeling of being right at ice level, inches away from the action. The piece has clearly been composed and it flows, bumps and all, very well, a natural sounding cascade of shards.

"Statics and sowers" involves beehives and electronics, and is roughly divided into three sections. The apiaries come first, an intense and just slightly creepy horde of buzzes near and far; fine depth here and more than a little uncomfortable. Quite abruptly, the bees are sharing the stage with a swathe of electronics (perhaps bee-sourced, hard for me to tell). A loud static charge all but submerges them as the music moves into a multi-layered, throbbing drone (pun intended). I found this portion less interesting, the general sound a bit too much like any number of drone works. But matters are redeemed a few minutes from the end when another harsh shift reintroduces the hive, but dimly, embedded in static fragments and barely contained feedback. This somehow comes across as very disturbing, not sure why. But it's an effective end for a very interesting venture. Worth hearing.

Aussenraum

Vinyl Round-up # 1

Costis Drygianakis - Blown Into Breeze (self-released)

Much fun on creamy white vinyl, this. A riotous assemblage of sound, Drygianakis corralling swatches from numerous performances,m taped voices and other sources, combining it with music generated by Stathis Theocharakis (piano, keyboards), Nikos Veliotis (cello), Lilly Varaklioti (voice), Manos 'Ego Death'[ :-)] Michaelides (electronics), Tasos Stamou (zither), Stylianos Tziritas (clarinet) and Dimitris Aitopoulos (guitar). "Instead of a press release", Drygianakis provides a poignant and sharp essay revolving around his experiences in the local cemetery of his hometown, Nea Anchialos. where his uncle was interred in 2009. It's both very moving and very aware of the surrounding world--the history of the area up to and including the current crisis--as reflected in the comings and goings of visiting families, the items left behind (and often stolen), the way those items reflect changing mores, for instance the candle replacements that "burn" longer, allowing an excuse for fewer visits...

It begins with some heavy, rich chords amidst wooly static and other atmospherics, a little reminiscent of GY!BE, but quickly tumbles into more varied terrain, with quivering throbs, voices, a soprano, sounds sourced from god-knows-where, much more, stirred into a fine, near-chaotic stew. I'm not sure if the cemetery essay is inducing the eerie sensations here, but the latter stages of the first track lend themselves rather well to images of Lovecraftian chittering in an ossuary. "Part two" (of four) is sparer, though still churning--low, rotating thrums buttressing thin whistles. Quick drop-puts, distant, vague voices, a low-pitched clarinet, cricket-like sounds, zither, imported strings--all file through, overlapping, managing to make some sense, beautifully deployed. This approach continues in the next cut with different elements (including what seems to be some church-based chanting) but maintaining a large interior space feeling and that eeriness, though that wears out its welcome a little bit. The final cut gets back on track with dense, dark electronics opening into a light space with cello dabs, voice blips and other scattered sounds flitting about, escalating to a massive assault, dropping abruptly away to steps, faint cello and hollow voices.

Strong, exciting work, I'm anxious to hear more.

soundcloud site

Mattin - Songbook #5 (Disembraining-What Is Not Music? #1)

In which Mattin comments on several issues involving freedom and improvisation, doing so in an anally constricted, rule-bound format revolving around the number five and, at least obliquely, referring to works like the Rowe/MIMEO project, 'sight'. Briefly, as a response to Australia's What Is Music? festival, Mattin posed the opposite question, having five musicians (Joel Stern, Andrew McLellan, Dean Roberts, Alex Cuffe and himself) improvise five, five-minute songs based on five ideas expressed in five-word phrases (e.g., "Aware Of Its Own Mediation"). He then did a 25-minute (5x5) concert in five equal sections based on these ideas and subsequently delivered a "singing lecture" which served as the vocal tracks for the pieces, all of these elements stacked onto the final product (à la "sight") and released the end result in an edition of 555 copies. One chuckles both at the notion and at the self-recognition of one's own anality.

The music? It's rock, more or less, of a particularly sludgy kind, muffled bass, loopy synth, a sluggish morass through which Mattin's highly distorted vocals meander. It's kind of dumb but seems to take its dumbness at face value, enough so that I actually found it not so hard to slip into and enjoy in a gooey, guilty kind of way. The final cut breaks the mold a bit, allowing more space, resonance and, to these ears, a more complex and headier kind of beauty. The words are more interesting though, Mattin continuing to question the scene's aesthetics and values, always a worthwhile endeavor regardless (or for the value of) pissing off or exasperating (or boring) denizens therein: you had to construct/your believe [sic] in self-expression/your believe [sic] in lived unmediated experiences/you just never show the process.

Hear for yourself: here

Mark Vernon - Sounds of the Modern Hospital (Meagre Resource)

I worked in a large hospital in NYC (Mount Sinai) from 1977 to early 2013. For a decent portion of that time, about 1988 to 2007 and sporadically thereafter, I found myself in patient areas that included a ton of technology: ICUs, X-Ray and MRI centers, ORs, ERs and dozens of kids of laboratories, most of which contained items capable of generating sound. On the one occasion where I actually underwent an MRI, the neurologist, in my pre-exam consultation, warned me about the noises that would occur and described them, advising me that many patients found them scary or uncomfortable. "That's ok," I said, "it sounds like a lot of the music I listen to." "You scare me," he replied.

Mark Vernon has assembled, in a wonderfully designed retro package (I love the faded purple), 33 slices of sound from hospitals in Scotland, sound of both mechanical and human derivation. They're presented blankly, "as is", no specific commentary or narrative in effect, though, over the course of the recording, the listener may inevitably construct such. Many of the technological sounds are iterative, various analyzers, pumps, printers, scanners and other medical devices and they, clearly, have a decided "musical" content. But here are also the voices of staff conducting therapy sessions here, chatting there. A particularly eerie sequence occurs when we hear coughs and wheezing played through a mannequin, a simulation device used in nurse training. The extracts are short, running about a minute or two each, delineating this as a "sound effects" recording (though some, like "METI Human Patient Simulator" have a quasi-musical aspect that sounds intriguingly close to, say, an extract from a Keith Rowe performance). But it becomes impossible not to embed these noises into an imagined whole, an alien sort of environment which, nonetheless, we've come to rely on. Those cool, detached beeps need to be warmed up to one of these days.

Oddly absorbing, do check it out.

Meagre Resource

Michael Pisaro/Miguel Prado - White Metal (Senufo Editions)

Where to begin? As a rule, I love seeing the scores to Pisaro's work, either before or after hearing a performance. There's always so much more going on than I can usually apprehend (consciously) while experiencing them. Here, the score, six pages not counting the title sheet, is printed right on the LP sleeve. As well, there's a card inserted inside the sleeve containing notes by Prado that further explicate this particular realization of the piece. But there are so many layers of complexity, technical and conceptual, that "following along" is a daunting task and ultimately, I think, less worthwhile than simply understanding that this massive, intricate framework does exist but, like pixels in a newspaper photo, you needn't concern yourself directly with it--but you shouldn't forget it either.

The title, "White Metal", necessarily calls to mind both Black Metal and White Noise and Prado goes into that a bit in his notes. While the latter, via the variety of sound sources used here, makes itself known (not always, by any means, as recognizable sounds also intrude), I don't particularly pick up any overt references to the former, though perhaps that's due to my relative lack of knowledge about the genre. For that matter, despite knowing the work decently, I don't hear the structural references to Mozart's 40th Symphony which apparently are also in play--I imagine there's a great deal I'm missing here. But still--it's a thrilling, challenging and fantastic experience. Pisaro, as is his wont, uses clock time as a lattice for the two musicians, each assuming two "voices" (three in the final section), to append their contributions, arraying the durations to overlap in a huge number of patterns. Sometimes these durations are for the length of the movement, other times they're as brief as two seconds. As usual, he also allows for some latitude and, as ever, this elicits a strong desire to hear other realizations of this project. Additionally, stereo panning is in effect so, as I understand it, we're hearing more or less of a given musician's sounds over the course of the work's four movements, one more "wave" that flows underneath the surface elements, shifting them in a very subtle manner. And, to be sure, there are silences, four of them of varying lengths, though at least as far as I hear on the LP at hand, there exist soft, irregular (not in line with the disc's rotation) patches of sound to be discerned during these periods; not certain if that's an artifact of the vinyl itself, though I expect it is. And that's fine! :-)

Just sitting back and letting the music flow over you, intuiting the architecture, wading through all these variations of white noise, is a wonderful experience. The first movement contains several washes of near-tonal content (if some actual shards of Black Metal have been extracted for use here, I'm guessing that's one of the places they might be) as well as a series of clicks, enabling it to serve as a kind of entryway to the remainder of the work wherein those kinds of ready handholds, while still popping up now and then (some quasi-tonality, recordings of ocean waves, a rocket countdown) grow more vague, enveloped by other more abstract noises. Just let the piece establish its own strange, obsessive logic, the myriad minuscule segments disappearing into the whole. Even then, because of its prismatic complexity, it sounds very different on each re-hearing. Or, rather, I pick up different aspects, assign more aural weight to one part than another; shifting, always shifting. Endlessly fascinating, one of my favorite releases this year, excellent actualization by Pisaro and Prado.

Senufo Editions

Keith Rowe/Ilia Belorukov/Kurt Liedwart - tri (Intonema)

(apart from the standard Roweian caveats, an additional one for being thanked on the disc sleeve, presumably for some footwork I did in the Spring of 2013 to assist Keith in getting his performance visa for entry into Russia)

Two trio performances from the same space, one with an audience, one without.

Not to be overly hierarchical about this, but even in as much as Rowe strives to maintain equanimity with any collaborators, when he journeys to a far-off location to do some improvisatory set with younger, local musicians, something of the sort inevitably creeps in, a certain deference on the part of those musicians, perhaps (barring some unusually strong personality), so that the results tend to follow a Roweian path and the listener tends to frame the music more in the context of what he knows of Rowe's previous work. Unfair and unfortunate, but difficult to avoid, at least for me. Happily, Rowe doesn't think of these events as "just" improv sessions (as opposed to projects that he's conceptualized at greater length or depth) but seeks to understand the place in which he's performing, the issues affecting the area, the musicians themselves of course, and to integrate himself into the milieu, hoping to add something of value and/or interest. It doesn't always work, by any means, but when it does--and I think that, by and large, that's the case here--the music can achieve a difficult-to-describe specialness.

Most of the sounds are quite subdued, especially in the set with audience, sublimated to a wonderful, sometimes ghostly degree. My impression throughout most of it was of a kind of ruffle in the atmosphere, a passing disturbance. Belorukov's alto saxophone (he's also heard on contact mics, ipod and other electronics and objects) is always discreet, carefully poking out its head, commenting quietly, receding. And Liedwart's ppooll (I take it), often provides deep, faint tones, a little watery sounding at times, often mysterious and indicative a great spatial depth even if they never quite attain solidity, really enjoyable. The music maintains this cool darkness for most of its 42 minutes, very impressive, very strong and surprisingly varied within those parameters. The occasional jostles and bangings emerge quite naturally, never seem forced and don't really get too loud or disparate, more a subtle change in texture and grain.

The sans audience set is reasonably similar and not bad, though it lacks the mystery of the other, strikes me as somewhat flatter, the sounds more up-front, sometimes very much so, bursting out of the frame and coming across as disjunctive, which may well be a tonic for the preceding set but doesn't work as satisfactorily for me. It's totally fine, very reminiscent of any number of such events I've seen or heard with Rowe, just not quite capturing that undefinable specialness encountered earlier. Although I must say, listening to it for the sixth or seventh time as I write, certain passages, such as the one beginning at about the 24-minute mark and continuing for a few minutes thereafter, are brilliant. It's one of those works I can easily see myself returning to in years to come and discovering multiple new aspects and ways of hearing/listening.

Definitely well worth investigating.

Intonema

Sophie Agnel/Olivier Benoit - REPS (Césaré)

I'd been only minimally familiar with Agnel's work, probably not much other than the Potlatch release with Lionel Marchetti and Jérôme Noetinger, 'Rouge Gris Bruit', from 2001 and the beautiful recording on Another Timbre, 'Spiral Inputs', with Bertrand Gauguet and Andrea Neumann, prior to hearing her perform at the Nya Perspektiv festival in Västerås, Sweden in 2012, which was something of a revelation. To unfairly encapsulate my impression, it was like someone channeling a healthy dose of Rzewski through free improv/post-Cage territory, both sonically bracing and emotionally moving. I've unfortunately managed to miss catching her in concert here, since my arrival in Paris (including a set with Michel Doneda last week on the same evening as the Diatribes show). My experience with Benoit's music hasn't been quite as enticing, including several jazz-rockish ventures on the Circum-Disc label that I never warmed up to.

So I'm happy to report that 'REPS' both enhances my appreciation of Agnel and also causes me to reappraise Benoit. Two medium length improvisations, about 18 and 15 minutes long, recorded in 2011. The first launches immediately into a motoric figure by Agnel (prepared piano, a clanking of sorts heard in the strings) accompanied by splintered lines from Benoit, harsh but with an underlying tonality suggestive of, say, Sharrock. This kind of piano approach, as mentioned above, almost automatically catapults me into a "Winnsboro Cottonmill Blues" (Rzewski) frame of mind, but splayed out a bit, leaking into adjacent, more contemporary areas. Agnel has strong tonal streak as well, a lovely sense of tone that constantly merges from the buzzes and clatters of the stringboard accoutrements, as well as a strong, though subtle, rhythmic sensibility. Admittedly, I hear mush of the music herein as emanating from her, with Benoit very ably accompanying, which I'm sure isn't truly the case. The guitarist eschews the kind of Rypdalian motifs I've heard before, navigating areas perhaps a few steps removed from noise (toward tonality) but never edging over into too easy offsets to the piano. The first track drifts from highly charged portions to dreamier ones, several times, managing to skirt any overtly free jazz idioms in favor of a kind of "free classical" environment and finding a wealth of material to work with there, really something of a different niche, very rich. When some deep chords on both instruments emerge some 2/3 of the way through, the effect is quite dramatic and and gratifying (and also reinforces the duo nature of the piece). A very fine mini-epic, this one.

The second cut opens in sparser climes with more of a scratchy, euro free improv feeling. Soon, though, one of those urgent rhythmic kernels appears, dark and chunky, leading the music into a swirling torrent, Benoit rubbing and chafing, that rushes into an intense, throbbing bit of chaos. As with the previous improvisation, it hurtles from place to place without any sense of purposelessness, each section naturally ensuing and the whole forming a coherent (at least in retrospect) structure; very satisfying, ultimately evaporating in a way that, in context, is unexpectedly lovely.

A strong, rather unique offering, well worth hunting down and hearing.

Césaré

Martin Küchen - ...and everything inside came down as dust (Confront)

[Needless to say, the above image isn't from the Confront release, but I could only find a non-.jpg image on-line and, well, you know, it's a Confront metal box release... :-) ]

Küchen's work in recent years, at least to the extent of my having heard and seen it, has been notable for its huge emotional charge, for his willingness to use near programatic content to convey his anger and frustration at events in the world. And it's been very powerful stuff. I'm tempted, therefore, to search for more of the same in this release (especially given the evocative album title) but these aspects, if present, are cast in much more oblique light. One gets the sense that there's something conceptual afoot, but it's difficult to put one's finger on exactly what that is. We learn, from the Confront site, that the recordings took place in the Expedithalle in Vienna, a huge space, "Europe's largest bread factory prior to World War II". Whether this fact has larger ramifications, I'm not aware, nor if the track titles, containing what I take to be physical measurements of the structure ("5 million sq ft of painted surfaces", for example) hold any greater significance. The last of the six cuts, however, dispenses with figures and is simply called, "Ritual defamation of Vienna". "Ritual defamation" is a term used, among other places, in the Arab/Israeli conflict to describe a strategy on the part of the latter to destroy the reputation, character, etc. of the Palestinian community via malicious speech. As Küchen is well known for his involvement in this issue, I take it that's part of the enigma here, though what Vienna has to do with things, I've no idea.

The music is obscure as well, though very strong. Again with the exception of the final track, Küchen conforms to a general structure each time out. His playing is much more restrained than is often the case, concentrating on low, liquid key pops, harsh breaths (Küchen, more than most saxophonists, has always treated his instrument rawly, like a metal tube with holes) and relatively quiet squeaks. What's unusual is his accompaniment. Again, no info is provided but they appear to be recordings, severely distorted, from other musical sources. On the first cut, it seems like a keyboard, perhaps a harpsichord (Bach?) though the quality makes it seem like the most distorted Fender Rhodes you've ever heard. Küchen burbles along beside it, showing no audible awareness of it, just two music generators sharing the same space. (I should mention that, throughout, there's no particular impression of being in a large space--everything seems very close mic'd.) On the next piece, amidst those raw, throat-scraping breaths, we hear a similarly grainy and distorted recording, but this time of Arabic music, a male voice and, I think, an ensemble. It comes and goes, conveying more of a ghost-like presence, though a vivid one. I think the following piece contains grainy radio (maybe all the external music is radio-sourced?), but it's more difficult to distinguish, Küchen producing strained whistles; the track is all the stronger for this mystery, very moving somehow. The fourth work more or less recapitulates the first, both with the harpsichord and key pops, though both quieter and more gnarled, more inward-collapsing--intense, personal and disturbing. The fifth track, "1200 elevators", includes wonderfully deep flutters and again, that radio sound, that seems to just barely impinge on a broadcast, eventually picking up, I think, some Arabic content; great stuff, oddly forceful. Finally, we hear Küchen unaccompanied, in some respects sounding more "familiar", circular-breathing a thin but multi-layered series of hollow tone and squeaks. No harpsichord, no Arabic music or radio, just the saxophonist, perhaps a bit tortured by those apparitions, desperately attempting to exorcise them.

Good, tough work, hard and scabrous.

Confront

One for Ghost - s/t (Skyapnea)

One for Ghost is a cassette release from Giovanni Civitenga (electronics) and Doreen Ooi (viola, objects).

The press release cites John Cale, Tony Conrad, La Monte Young and early minimalism generally as influences and some of those are clear enough, but the pair fashion a reasonable unique sound world themselves, nodding to Eastern traditions near the beginning of the half-hour piece (I hear smidgens of Hassell and perhaps some of the more meditative aspects of the Canterbury scene), with a welcome thread of dirtier, glitchy electronics, before shifting to a fine percussive section, various quasi-rhythmic, hollow sounds tapping away, remotely. Some strong, melancholy viola, overdubbed into a small, mourning ensemble before shifting once again, There are many such shifts, tumbling from place to place while retaining something of a consistent character. Frithian guitar-ish areas (though no guitar is credited), parts that recall Hector Zazou, swirls of bubbling electronics, simplemelodic fragments that surface, repeat for a while, sink back....it's a stew of sorts, some ingredients more palatable than others, but everything digestible. Maybe the references are too overt (there are also portions that remind me of Scott Johnson and, midway through Side B, a patch that's very much out of Reich circa 'Different Trains') and I'd be curious to hear future work where these skins are sloughed off, but Civitenga and Ooi evince a personal voice beneath all that and a very attractive one. Recommended for the more minimalist/Fennesz-y branches of readers.


Skyapnea

Mark Alban Lotz - Solo Flutes (LopLop)

Mark Alban Lotz/Islak Köpek - Istanbul Improv Sessions May 4th (Evil Rabbit)

Lotz is a German flutist who, as far as I can ascertain, has been making a good name for himself in European jazz circles, though the solo effort shows his clear intentions to diversify quite a bit. Kevin Whitehead, who wrote the notes for the Istanbul session, cites his childhood traversing areas from Thailand to Uganda with his musicologist father and one hears a clear affinity with various musical approaches, including European free improvisation.

The variety of attacks can be something of a problem when arrayed in disc form, here comprising 17 relatively short tracks; it almost necessarily becomes a palette showing what the musician is capable of rather than a satisfying whole and the listener is more or less forced to choose as to which pathways he deems satisfying, which not. I should first point out the obvious: Lotz is a fantastic flutist, evincing great command, facility and imagination. He uses concert flute, alto flute, bass flute, PVC contrabass flute (the cover image)and voice. I can't list each track but, for example, he goes from a disarmingly attractive key popping exercise ("Albert Speaks") to a ghostly series of tones ("Aş Şaḩrā' ash Sharqīyah (Eastern Desert)") that morphs into strident overtones reminiscent of Abdullah Ibrahim's relatively rare flute playing, also quite attractive. From thence into "Whole Steps", a piece that sounds like a take on some Dolphy composition I can't put my finger on. He vocalizes through the flute her and elsewhere, making the later, lovely tribute to Kirk, "For Rahsaan", appropriate. "Hungry III" marks the first venture into extended techniques, here a liquid gurgling (I take it using water) and, to me, it's a misstep only because it's the type of approach we've more or less heard before and which, usually, comes off simply as an effect, having no particular reason for being other than to show its possibility. I begin to get the impression that Lotz, to my ears, is better served the more "traditional" he plays, either via jazz or contemporary classical, a suspicion borne out by "PVC Mantra", a didgeridoo-esque piece that, again while displaying great command, doesn't really get past the surface of the deep, vibrating sound. Then again, the ensuing track, "For Moth", works beautifully, a cascading whirlpool that's both technically very impressive and, somehow, connotes a musical identity beyond the technique, a presence. So it goes through the recording. For each attempt that doesn't quite make it ("Adam and Eva", "Do Not Swallow!"--in fact the set of "Bass flute Sequenzas", presumably a nod to Berio--), there's one that stands perfectly well and solidly on its own ("Piccolo for Makeba", "Major Circles", "A Fine Winter"). As is not uncommon in my experience with certain musicians, I find the "straighter" efforts to be more convincing than the experimental ones. Given the brevity of the pieces, I might have liked to have heard certain ideas, even ones that initially don't strike me as promising, delved into at far greater length, to see if more could be wrested out. So, I find "Solo Flutes" both frustrating and intriguingly impressive. I'm curious to hear where Lotz goes from here.

The Istanbul set is, needless to say, a very different affair. Islak Köpek is a quintet with Şevket Akıncı (guitar), Kevin W. Davis (cello), Korhan Erel (laptop, controllers), Robert Reigle (tenor) and Volkan Terzioğlu (tenor), a band, if this is a good example, that seems at home in the efi tradition. Again, we're presented with many (fifteen) short pieces, none over six minutes and I'm not sure that's for the best. The potential sextet appears in several formations containing two to six players, Lotz always present. In general, I prefer the tracks without the tenorists, neither of whom impress me as anything out of the routine in this end of the music. My knowledge of jazz in Turkey doesn't extend much beyond Burhan Öçal, though I know the art form is very alive there. Here, my favorite moments are when the musicians (presumably the Turks) incorporate aspects of their native musics (as in "mouths"), playing down the individual, jazzier tendencies in favor of a broad group sound. As with the above release, this is kind of hit and miss for me, here falling into a pretty standard, humdrum efi kind of improv, there casting that aside and attaining a gripping, deeply musical melange of cultures.

LopLop

Evil Rabbit

Michael Ammann - Work 2010/2011 (Toen.studio)

A series of electronics pieces which seem to be largely, if not entirely, voice-sourced. For some listeners, including yours truly, this can often lead to a certain amount of discomfort, unfair though I know it to be. I find that it seems to be very difficult to, if one is going in that direction, abstract the voice enough to remove the emotive baggage that's inevitably attached (Ami Yoshida, often enough, for example). I far prefer it when the musician in question deals with the voice as such, emotion and all, which tends to lead down the pathways, however skewed, of song. That's just me, YMMV and all.

Ammann, as I understand it, refers having his audience in the dark, wearing sleeping mask, centered among speakers. I can see the music working well there, in an INA GRM kind of way--the electronics themselves are often gripping and always solid enough. Myself, I'd still, I think, be put off by the vocal modulations. They're often whispered in a manner that comes off as theatrically menacing and, when elaborated or otherwise modified by the electronics, well, I can't help but be transported into gothic movies and the like. Even within these strictures, I don't find enough variation or, ont he other hand, burrowing into a given vein at length, to satisfy me. SOme samples are up on Ammann's site below, however, so you can hear and judge for yourself.

Ammann

Tetuzi Akiyama/Anla Courtis - Naranja Songs (Public Eyesore)

I don't know Courtis' work at all well enough to opine as to where "Naranja Songs" sits in his oeuvre but although I'm certain I've missed many an Akiyama release in recent years, I'll easy proffer the opinion that this is, by far, my favorite recording of his since "Relator". Recorded in 2008 but just now seeing the light of day, it consists of four pieces, improvisations on a pair of acoustic guitars that might be described as "pastoral" but that's far too banal and, really, inaccurate as, crucially, there's always an underlying sense of disturbance, of anxiety.

The first piece establishes the general mood that suffuses much of the album, spare but tonal--maybe think of Bailey at his most tranquil but also retaining a real interest in certain historical avenues of the guitar, particularly Spanish. Largely single notes, very conscious of space between the players, but also melancholy and, as said above, anxious, a truly delicious mix. I'm tempted to use the term, "meander", to describe its near-15 minute path, but without any of the pejorative implied--Akiyama and Courtis find something of value around every bend. The second track moves into slightly more abstract territory, bows of some sort (I think) being used, but that plaintive, essentially melodic character remains present, the cries underlined by nervous strummings, quite moving. The next returns to an area tangential to the first, a bit more rhythmic thrust, at times sounding not dissimilar to classic Gastr del Sol--wonderful buzz tones and cadences abound. The last cut again steers back into a more fragmented space, one of the musicians using some vibrating device on his strings, again enhancing that mood of disquiet. The plucked guitar reduces to almost nothing, acceding to the grind, wherein all that pent up anxiety is released with, happily, no reconciliation.

An excellent recording, well worth your time

Public Eyesore

Benjamin Finger - The Bet (Watery Starve Press)

Finger is a Norwegian composer and DJ and "The Bet" is a collection of ten electronics pieces, in an accessible, psychedelic vein that recall, among others, Fennesz, Hoahio, various minimalists and, I guess inevitably, Eno. The settings are lush, often using echoey keyboards that play simple, brief phrases over a moist, luminous background wherein dwell disembodied voices (Inga-Lill Farstad and Linn Fister) that suffuse the air amidst glitchy crackles. The pulses are languid, sinking in the forest of echoes. Guitar appears on occasion, gentle, and there's cello throughout (Elling Finnanger Snofugl) though it tends to recede into the overall ambience as do the field recordings that surface now and again. The abundance of ancillary sounds ameliorates the general sweetness a fair amount though, overall, the smoothness and blurred quality could use a healthy dose of harshness; the penultimate track, "Care in Motion", begins to get there, though the echoes, by this point, have outstayed their welcome. Listeners who enjoy bathing in Fenneszian sumptuousness will find much to enjoy, as the production values are high and the sounds do a good job summoning up images out of a Klarwein painting.

Watery Starve

Thomas Ankersmit - Figueroa Terrace (Touch)

This is a truly fascinating disc, one of the strongest electronic pieces I've heard in a while. Ankersmit hasn't released so much in recent years (see in-depth interview here) so it's entirely possible that a work like "Figueroa Terrace" has been in the offing for a while, but it's still in some ways, in its structure particularly, as surprising as it is powerful.

Done with analog synths and contact mics (some technical details in the Touch link below), it opens with a far-more-complex-than-you-think-at-first, rapid fire line, like some mutant cousin of Radian. You initially think of the "medium" line, an intense (though icy-smooth) stream, but soon realize that there are all manner of adjacent sounds, low to high, buffeting it, propelling it forward. So ok, you think you have an idea where this is heading, perhaps an ever-expanding series of vectors, spanning out, overlapping, cresting, etc.; nice enough as is. But then.

A bit over three minutes in, the bottom drops out, absolutely falls. You're deposited in a place that, really, is just as active and even with its own sense of propulsion, but far thinner, the sounds all in the high/prickly range, individual grains, coalescing here and there like silt drifting toward a seabed. And the piece stays there for quite awhile, Ankersmit investigating the newfound abundance of lifeforms, generating remarkable variety using (seemingly) so little. A series of thunks and scratches, non-electronic sounding but probably so, pass through at one point, but the tidal shifts keep in character with the overall shimmering, glistening aspect. Slight, sandy rubbings beneath extraordinary high (and beautiful) glimmers (to take the underwater analogy perhaps too far, like phosphorescent plankton), soon underlined by a hyper-deep throb that passes by. Little by little, you get a sense of something developing and kind of a retrospective idea that this whole composition has had a destination all along, been more narrative than you thought. Layers of ringing tones are flitted through by wing flutters, gently herding things toward some end, heralded by a steady, hard pulse (I should pause and mention how entirely excellent virtually everything here sounds). There's another drastic shift at this point, a series of small static explosions and siren-like tones, several minutes of rich dronage, sparked with hiss and more static that ultimately locks into a kind of rhythm cycle, super dense with, a final surprise, a very plaintive "cry" atop. But this cry bears all sorts of connotations, from a lost animal to something of a blues feel, very surprising and extremely effective, strongly imparting the sense of having arrived somewhere and having a strangely emotional impact on the listener, at least this listener. More so, even, when it all gets cut off abruptly.

A seriously impressive work, very glad to have heard it. Do check it out.

Touch

Natura Morta - Decay (FMR)

Frantz Loriot, viola, objects; Sean Ali, bass, objects; Carlo Costa, drums, percussion.

I'd heard Loriot on a couple of Creative Sources discs but had my strongest impression of his playing shortly after I arrived here in Paris when I caught a very fine performance of his viola duo with Cyprien Busolini at Les Instants Chavirés. I nonetheless had, for some reasons (including the label), expectations that this set would veer more to the efi end of things but by and large, this isn't the case, happily.

"Sirens" features dry, bowed strings, high-pitched but calmly played, over brushes, the latter imparting tinges of a jazz feel more of a soft tumbling effect, percolating under the held tones. Things grow more active and, indeed, I thought for awhile that my suspicions were justified as the music becomes more about the sawing/rubbing effects of the strings than of a sustained idea. This begins to be remedied in "Miasmata", a delicate and mysterious piece of small sounds, unhurried and slightly foggy, with low drum taps feeling there way through the haze, bowed bells (?) providing glimmers of light. It too grows a bit more active than needed toward the end but it's a step (for me) in the right direction, to a goal reached in third and longest track, and my favorite, "The Burial of Memories". Here, the trio remains consistent, sticking with the "groove" (very high, scratchy bass scrabblings, nervous, high viola pluckings and agitated, thin percussion) fora good while, transitioning into a similarly toned, more percussive area. Roiling yes, but never over-busy, instead creating a prickly carpet that ably covers all of its 18 minutes plus, very nice. The cover image isn't a bad analogy. The final piece stays in that gently ringing percussive zone (through much of this, oddly, I though that the music was often something Roscoe Mitchell could have done but never did, this track included), soft and restrained, the sounds well spaced and just varied enough.

A good recording--I'll be curious to see if they move on from this.

FMR

ouch! eye-damaging website, that one is.

Arek Gulbenkoglu - untitled (no label)

When Richard Pinnell posted the above image on his facebook page, I noticed it but didn't follow the ensuing thread. So, a few days later, when I received in the mail a box that seemed suspiciously light for its size (about 10 x 8 x 4 inches), I'd no particular idea what it contained. I would have had less of an idea, I guess, had not French Customs (Douane) stabbed it with some sharp instrument, puncturing the "pillow" within and freeing roughly a million shards of thin, plastic ribbons from their cocoon. It took several seconds to realize that I wasn't dealing with "packing" materials but with (disfigured) packaging, during which time the static-adhesive, lighter than air bits had strewn themselves happily around my entrance hallway; two weeks later, I'm still finding their descendants when the light is right....Instead of being sustained inside this cellule, the 3-inch disc and accompanying card (black print on clear plastic) had burrowed their way to the box's depths.

Ah yes, there's music involved as well, a 2011 recording with "snare + preparations". Golbenkoglu has produced challenging work before; this is either more of the same or a not terribly interesting (to me) performance. It's highly abstracted, set out in slight dabs and pieces, sounding as though recorded from a distance. There are times when I get a Twombly-like feeling that's very beautiful in a way but other times the music crosses the line that Twombly navigates so well, into an arbitrariness that drifts uncomfortably, though I could easily imagine that being the point. It also makes me wonder about the package, of all the excessive cello-fluff, about the purposeful inconvenience and encumbrance, the "with hidden noise" aspect, etc. Even its elements, plastic and colorless (save for what it reflects), dissimilar to (I'm also forced to consider) Meehan's "Sectors (for Constant)" that inherently absorbing and gorgeous object still resting against the wall, unopened, in front of me. Knowing (or thinking) that Meehan's music contained therein is likely to be more to my liking than this but choosing not to listen whereas, even if the choice hadn't been made for me by the curious customs official, I've no doubt I would have opened it, essentially negating the care (and purpose?) Golbenkoglu had in so packaging his work.

Listening to the music a few more times, its remoteness, which leads you to hear it as though from an adjoining room, is rather effective. Still, it's hard to reconcile with the whys of its form of delivery. Maybe a joke, but I imagine not. Maybe an elaborateness/simplicity (rawness, brutalism) dichotomy. It's in an edition of only 50, so there may not be a way to find out for yourselves and I'm unable to locate anything on-line to aid your search. Good luck.

Antje Vowinckel - Terra Prosodia (Gruenrekorder)

I think my only prior exposure to Vowinckel's work was on a shared disc, on Bowindo, with Alessandro Bosetti and a track on the Echtzeitmusik Berlin collection, so this is my first experience of her music in any depth. Here, the central idea is simple enough: the inherent musicality of certain dialects, in this case, six examples of speech forms in some danger of disappearing: Rumansch (Switzerland), Gutamal (Gotland, in the Baltic Sea), Provençal (France), Wallis-Deutsch (Switzerland?), Gascon (France) and Scottish-Gaelic. She asks native speakers to recount a personal story, records them and, often, edits and reconstructs this core material, including the repetition of phrases. She pairs this with electronic sounds, I think largely via computer program but possibly with some intuitively applied, which accentuate those more purely musical aspects of the language, often beginning in unison, more or less, with the speech but diverging somewhat, taking on an obbligato kind of role.

The spoken words are indeed fascinating to hear and, at least to this English speaker (presumably to a German as well), hold a good deal of content that one thinks of as musical. I found myself wondering how/if this perception might vary depending on one's native tongue. Part of me, admittedly, might rather have heard these words unadorned but Vowinckel's additions are usually quite complementary and well-considered. The sounds, all electronic (save for, per the notes, some "hummed melodic voice" that is heard on the final track) take on, at different times, the character of percussion, low strings, sine-like tones. Once, I was reminded very much of a doussn'gouni but on another, unfortunately, Keith Emerson at the helm of a Moog. As intended, it's not hard to hear both elements as melodic lines and that's where the real interest is. For example, the elderly male speaking Gutamal in the second track can almost be heard as a kind of bass clarinet, mixing beautifully with, in this case, a range of percussive, breath-like and rattling sounds. The youngster (hard to tell if it's a boy or girl) speaking Provençal has a wonderful flute-like quality, winding through light tapping that echoes the voice's rhythm and pitch. Throughout, with an arguable misstep now and then, it's an absorbing listen, part anthropology, part appreciation of the very sensual nature of the voices.

Gruenrekorder