It’s been a long time without reports about this perennially inspired man, who seems to have found the preferred method of expression – and growing quantities of success – with Nadja, his duo with Leah Buckareff. But when one listens to the following projects, shades of the Baker of old are still there to be in awe of.
AIDAN BAKER / TIM HECKER – Fantasma Parastasie
Toronto versus Vancouver (where Hecker was born), about 33 minutes for 66 tracks divided in cycles of 11, the music nevertheless flowing without interruptions. This record sounds like a slightly irregular parade of moods: the piece starts with mind-altering digital crunch, continues with layered overdriven guitars, walks across calmer interludes replete with delicately clean arpeggios, ends with looping rotations halfway through distress and melancholy leading into a wonderfully humming finale, low frequencies wavering all over the place swallowing our resistance while increasing the sense of doubt. Unintentional echoes of Fennesz and (more vaguely) Basinski are alternated with the most caustically critical situations, distortion often on the verge of timbral degeneration. Not exactly one of the musts, but overall a pretty solid outing. (Alien8)
AIDAN BAKER & THE INFANT CYCLE – Rural Sprawl
Much longer than the above release at circa 64 minutes, the joint effort of Baker with J.D. Jung (aka The Infant Cycle) is also a tad more ear-gratifying, perhaps due to the larger time span which allows a wider range of diffusion to ideas and sounds - and, consequently, a better penetration of memory. Two of the four pieces were originally released in 2002 as Rural (on Blade Records) The distinct personalities are well visible, the conjunction of the prevalently mechanical character of TIC’s instrumentation with AB’s ever-expanding steamy auras working quite nicely. A sickish cyclicality remains at the basis of an engulfing kind of estrangement which only rarely gets soothed by characteristically celestial cracks caused by the Canadian’s stratified cries (which, for my taste, have always brought superior results when those lysergic fuzzy guitar lines are discarded, leaving the looping mass alone to overwhelm a transfixed listener; Baker is still the man when it comes down to that). An appreciable game of proposal and acceptance of reciprocal suggestions between the artists, translating into a genuine will of sounding a little different than expected. Definitely a good one, yet it takes a while before realizing. (Zhelezobeton)
AIDAN BAKER – Gathering Blue
This limited edition 2-LP set could represent an acceptable solution for those who missed a few significant works by the Canadian loopmeister which were published - in similarly scarce quantities – years ago in different formats. It comprises in fact some of his most morbidly hypnotic pieces (in which Baker also utilizes the voice in typically whispered style) like The Taste Of Summer On Your Skin, Remixes and Cicatrice, not to mention the cover of Joy Division’s “Twenty-Four Hours”. While the music remains to this day absolutely compelling, an exquisite taster of what this man can elicit via the sheer superimposition of infinite notes and ghostly murmurs, it should be emphasized that the choice of releasing this stuff on vinyl makes sense only if we consider Gathering Blue a collector’s item. I hate clicks and pops when listening to something that’s able to mesmerize to such an extent, can’t stand the degradation of low frequencies whose power can’t be contained by the grooves, and equally loathe the reality of having this level of entrancement repeatedly interrupted to flip the disc and start again. Still, these four sides contain high-quality materials from which a lot of people have been fishing ideas and impressions unashamedly, thus making obvious the uniqueness of Baker’s impressively prolific mind and stretched-out artistic vision. (Equation)
Sunday, 30 August 2009
Saturday, 22 August 2009
Past Echoes, Remote Memories, Sweltering Heat
With temperatures nearing 40°, even listening to music becomes more of a difficult task. Does that prevent this sweating man from typing? Not yet, but it’s getting increasingly hard these days to perform regular everyday activities. Here’s a consistent grouping of not-exactly-recent releases that I finally managed to spin and properly evaluate. Some of them date from 2007 (!), although they were received last year or so. These reviews are just another pitiable attempt to catch up with the enormous delay caused by the constantly mounting quantities of recordings that get sent to me, for which – as always – I’m thanking and apologizing at one and the same time, especially considering that many labels have probably seen their catalogue flourishing in the meantime. Jeez.
CHRIS WATSON – Cima Verde
Vivid reminiscences evoked by a series of field recording sessions conducted with proverbial mastery by Watson in the occasion of Sound Threshold, a manifestation occurred in Northern Italy in July 2008 which, in the words of curators Lucia Farinati and Daniela Cascella, aimed to explore “the visual, natural, literary and acoustic landscape of the Trentino region in conjunction with the latest research in the fields of ecology, technology and archaeology”. Watson collected several suggestive aural snapshots from Monte Bondone and Parco Di Paneveggio (Pale Di San Martino) - the places where he spent his residency - starting from higher altitudes to gradually “descend to earth”. Needless to say, listening to the roaring boom of the winds, the tantalizing liquefaction of snow, the breathtaking hush of the night always gives a measure of ecstatic suspension, but – once more – birds are the ones who steal the show: a black grouse heard in “Bucaneve” has nothing to envy to a modern analogue synthesizer, tawny owls sound majestically melancholic in “Le Crone”, and the nightingale that seals the package with a solo performance in “Valle Dei Venti” is the nearest thing to perfection a human being could ever listen to. Do something to get a copy of this obscure nugget - and if, after doing that, you can enter a wood and really learn to pin your ears back that’ll be even better. At least before the fires voluntarily caused by the lesser race called “man” end destroying any shrub left standing. (Sound Threshold)
JACQUES DEMIERRE – One Is Land
Two lengthy improvisations for solo piano by Demierre, whose work was alien to me until this afternoon. “Sea Smell” is a rumbling, literally booming attack to the lower regions of the keyboard via continuously percussive hammering, almost 24 minutes of deeply resonant clangour rather close to the most recent things heard from Charlemagne Palestine (inclusive of his last collaboration with Christoph Heemann, Saiten In Flammen on Streamline). Amidst the huge jumble of fluctuating upper partials and chaotic low-frequency ebullience, extremely rare “chords” are at times perceived, a bit like watching fishes jumping out, and immediately returning into exceptionally turbulent waters. In regard to variableness I prefer the other track, “Land Smell”, an exploration of the inner parts of the instrument that – although not really breaking new ground – introduces a welcome element of diversity in an otherwise too monotonous recipe. In particular, Demierre extracts lovely harmonics by hitting the strings with what could be a mallet, or by some alternative kind of preparation, generating sections in which a peculiar tolling lets us forget about the actual source of this music, rendering the sound more akin to that of a stifled bell; the rest is classic “zip-clink-and-twirl” nitpicking inside the big box. Moderately interesting record, especially in the second half - but definitely not a perfect shot. (Creative Sources)
DWELLING – Ainda É Notte
First piece of a three-CD promo packet received last year from Equilibrium, a label from Lisbon specialized in “neo-classical, folk, world and ambient music, inspired both classically and traditionally, often presented in acoustic form and bringing to live an intimist (sic) setting”. This disc comprises materials quite distant from the stuff I usually write about, but Dwelling – from Portugal, too - play well, with taste and sincerity. Two violins, different types of guitars and basses and a decidedly non-virtuosic female vocalist, Catarina Raposo, singing in Portuguese and English, peaceful songs bracketed by intriguing pseudo-medieval counterpoints and absolute – at times excessive – harmonic simplicity. Madredeus meets Penguin Café Orchestra, anyone? Everything very consonant with just a little spice every once in a while, generally due to an intelligent bass line. Nice dialogues between the guitars, skilfully and gratifyingly intertwined. Suitable for melancholic afternoons when one feels doing nothing. (Equilibrium)
HEXPEROS – The Garden Of The Hesperides
A quintet from Italy mainly fashioned after Dead Can Dance. That should spell “enough” for me, who already consider the originals overhyped; I went on and listened anyway. The instrumentation includes flute, double bass, guitar, keyboards, harps and two violins, and the female soloist and co-founder Alessandra Santovito (not always impeccable as far as intonation is concerned) sings in Italian-accented English or modulates in pseudo-operatic, at times hilarious style; while we're on the subject, anything Anglophone contaminated by Latin inflections means sacrilege in this house. A semi-synthetic mishmash of gothic and medieval echoes with occasional exotic percussion, rather postcard-ish in its polite implementation. Indeed the group plays decorously, but the whole sounds mostly mildewed. Workstation-tinged electronics amidst the acoustic flavours frequently represent an avoidable out-of-tune element. The Lisa Gerrard-like nuances are often (voluntarily?) kept soft in the mix, which in general appears a bit inhomogeneous to these ears. It’s not a nauseating record yet it results quite lifeless, outdated and, in some cases, comparable to an Ed Wood soundtrack (“The Warm Whisper Of The Wind”, “Artemisia”). (Equilibrium)
LES FRAGMENTS DE LA NUIT – Musique Du Crépuscule
Third and last offer in this Equilibrium triptych, Les Fragments De La Nuit are a French group led by pianist Michel Villar and violinist Ombeline Chardes, people actively involved in the business of movie and documentary soundtracks. Of the three ensembles reviewed in relation to this label, this is the one that plays the more technically advanced music, the instruments interlocked in often spectacular garlands of repetitive figurations or murmuring in delicately passionate harmonic modulations. Obvious influences are Philip Glass and Michael Nyman, flagrantly reproduced in sporadic passages; other tracks made me recall (to some extent) Belgian favourites Julverne. There’s no question that the quality of the musicianship is high, and – considering what kind of boredom both the aforementioned composers have subjected my ears to in various circumstances from the late 80s on, we might even be willing to accept a fine replica of the originals. Let’s just say that this quintet sounds extremely professional, the components gifted with indubitable talent; but uniqueness, alas, is a gift an artist is born with. (Equilibrium)
UTE VÖLKER / ANGELIKA SHERIDAN – Leuchtfische
Völker is an accordionist, Sheridan plays different flutes. Theirs is indisputably improvisation, yet not according to the canons one might expect in this day and age. There are structures at work here, no protracted silences (although segments featuring intense quietness are present), no surpluses of air without notes – in a word, no reductionism. These strong-minded women are academically trained, and their inclination seems in effect to reside in the investigation of a field where the instances of modern classicalism and instant intuition meet, usually via a complete exploitation of full-grown timbres and technical solutions that do not rise above orthodoxy in a truly revolutionary way, despite the disentanglement from the unexciting sensations currently spreading across well-known “soundless” circles. Quite often these recordings situate the listener in a somewhat tense setting typical of a hesitant wait: the resolution is perhaps behind the corner, but seldom materializing manifestly. It’s not a type of listening experience that could be defined engaging or easy to swallow; and, every once in a while, the intelligence shown throughout the large part of the instrumental interaction leaves room to moments of slight stagnation, especially due to the not always functional combination of the separate voices. The duo is definitely competent, though: it surely takes several tries to acknowledge an incontestable maturity and, for the music itself, to reveal numerous degrees of temperament and profundity – and, in truth, a little dispassionateness - that attributes a distinct individuality to the whole venture. (Valve)
KELLY ROSSUM – Family
Searching for a remedy against the lethargic exhaustion deriving from years of listening to pedestrian jazz? In Minnesota they do well with Kelly Rossum, who – besides looking like the nicest of the guys, halfway through a démodé punk and myself (just kidding Kelly, but we do actually share a tiny bit of facial resemblance – I hadn’t realized last time…) – possesses one of the most beautifully clear-as-crystal trumpet voices heard in a long while. Family, who was published a year ago (a-hem), is a highly enjoyable effort, comprising material supplied by the leader, pianist Bryan Nichols and bassist Chris Bates, plus three covers. The drumming duties belong to JT Bates, who didn’t contribute with compositions. Difficult to say why a record noticeably rooted in tradition sounds this captivatingly unsullied; hearing this music makes you smirk for no apparent reason. Maybe it’s because Rossum and his comrades are reciprocally fine-tuned in a such a way that their instrumental moves elicit an aura of sorts, directly referring to a glorious past which they probably haven’t even experienced first-hand, given everybody’s relatively young age. The pieces are straightforwardly energizing, swinging with gusto and, when the tick is right, utilizing a correct dose of discursiveness that shows the technical ability of the participants, minus the showing off. And when introspection kicks in (as in Nichols’ splendid “Interlude”) we’re ready to put everything down and listen transfixed, thinking to itineraries of ineluctable occurrences perfectly coincident with our fleeting predisposition. The trumpeter governs the quartet without an iron fist, a performer endowed with inquisitive ears and a sense of intelligent altruism which literally renders this album a longed-for joyful intermission amidst so many bad news and worse vibes swallowing us up day in, day out. Thank you very much, boys – you’re a veritable breath of fresh air, and my wife has asked me to leave the CD available to her for repeating the session also when I’m absent - now, THAT really means something. Among the finest jazz albums of 2008: shame on this reviewer for coming to it late. (612 Sides)
CHRIS WATSON – Cima Verde
Vivid reminiscences evoked by a series of field recording sessions conducted with proverbial mastery by Watson in the occasion of Sound Threshold, a manifestation occurred in Northern Italy in July 2008 which, in the words of curators Lucia Farinati and Daniela Cascella, aimed to explore “the visual, natural, literary and acoustic landscape of the Trentino region in conjunction with the latest research in the fields of ecology, technology and archaeology”. Watson collected several suggestive aural snapshots from Monte Bondone and Parco Di Paneveggio (Pale Di San Martino) - the places where he spent his residency - starting from higher altitudes to gradually “descend to earth”. Needless to say, listening to the roaring boom of the winds, the tantalizing liquefaction of snow, the breathtaking hush of the night always gives a measure of ecstatic suspension, but – once more – birds are the ones who steal the show: a black grouse heard in “Bucaneve” has nothing to envy to a modern analogue synthesizer, tawny owls sound majestically melancholic in “Le Crone”, and the nightingale that seals the package with a solo performance in “Valle Dei Venti” is the nearest thing to perfection a human being could ever listen to. Do something to get a copy of this obscure nugget - and if, after doing that, you can enter a wood and really learn to pin your ears back that’ll be even better. At least before the fires voluntarily caused by the lesser race called “man” end destroying any shrub left standing. (Sound Threshold)
JACQUES DEMIERRE – One Is Land
Two lengthy improvisations for solo piano by Demierre, whose work was alien to me until this afternoon. “Sea Smell” is a rumbling, literally booming attack to the lower regions of the keyboard via continuously percussive hammering, almost 24 minutes of deeply resonant clangour rather close to the most recent things heard from Charlemagne Palestine (inclusive of his last collaboration with Christoph Heemann, Saiten In Flammen on Streamline). Amidst the huge jumble of fluctuating upper partials and chaotic low-frequency ebullience, extremely rare “chords” are at times perceived, a bit like watching fishes jumping out, and immediately returning into exceptionally turbulent waters. In regard to variableness I prefer the other track, “Land Smell”, an exploration of the inner parts of the instrument that – although not really breaking new ground – introduces a welcome element of diversity in an otherwise too monotonous recipe. In particular, Demierre extracts lovely harmonics by hitting the strings with what could be a mallet, or by some alternative kind of preparation, generating sections in which a peculiar tolling lets us forget about the actual source of this music, rendering the sound more akin to that of a stifled bell; the rest is classic “zip-clink-and-twirl” nitpicking inside the big box. Moderately interesting record, especially in the second half - but definitely not a perfect shot. (Creative Sources)
DWELLING – Ainda É Notte
First piece of a three-CD promo packet received last year from Equilibrium, a label from Lisbon specialized in “neo-classical, folk, world and ambient music, inspired both classically and traditionally, often presented in acoustic form and bringing to live an intimist (sic) setting”. This disc comprises materials quite distant from the stuff I usually write about, but Dwelling – from Portugal, too - play well, with taste and sincerity. Two violins, different types of guitars and basses and a decidedly non-virtuosic female vocalist, Catarina Raposo, singing in Portuguese and English, peaceful songs bracketed by intriguing pseudo-medieval counterpoints and absolute – at times excessive – harmonic simplicity. Madredeus meets Penguin Café Orchestra, anyone? Everything very consonant with just a little spice every once in a while, generally due to an intelligent bass line. Nice dialogues between the guitars, skilfully and gratifyingly intertwined. Suitable for melancholic afternoons when one feels doing nothing. (Equilibrium)
HEXPEROS – The Garden Of The Hesperides
A quintet from Italy mainly fashioned after Dead Can Dance. That should spell “enough” for me, who already consider the originals overhyped; I went on and listened anyway. The instrumentation includes flute, double bass, guitar, keyboards, harps and two violins, and the female soloist and co-founder Alessandra Santovito (not always impeccable as far as intonation is concerned) sings in Italian-accented English or modulates in pseudo-operatic, at times hilarious style; while we're on the subject, anything Anglophone contaminated by Latin inflections means sacrilege in this house. A semi-synthetic mishmash of gothic and medieval echoes with occasional exotic percussion, rather postcard-ish in its polite implementation. Indeed the group plays decorously, but the whole sounds mostly mildewed. Workstation-tinged electronics amidst the acoustic flavours frequently represent an avoidable out-of-tune element. The Lisa Gerrard-like nuances are often (voluntarily?) kept soft in the mix, which in general appears a bit inhomogeneous to these ears. It’s not a nauseating record yet it results quite lifeless, outdated and, in some cases, comparable to an Ed Wood soundtrack (“The Warm Whisper Of The Wind”, “Artemisia”). (Equilibrium)
LES FRAGMENTS DE LA NUIT – Musique Du Crépuscule
Third and last offer in this Equilibrium triptych, Les Fragments De La Nuit are a French group led by pianist Michel Villar and violinist Ombeline Chardes, people actively involved in the business of movie and documentary soundtracks. Of the three ensembles reviewed in relation to this label, this is the one that plays the more technically advanced music, the instruments interlocked in often spectacular garlands of repetitive figurations or murmuring in delicately passionate harmonic modulations. Obvious influences are Philip Glass and Michael Nyman, flagrantly reproduced in sporadic passages; other tracks made me recall (to some extent) Belgian favourites Julverne. There’s no question that the quality of the musicianship is high, and – considering what kind of boredom both the aforementioned composers have subjected my ears to in various circumstances from the late 80s on, we might even be willing to accept a fine replica of the originals. Let’s just say that this quintet sounds extremely professional, the components gifted with indubitable talent; but uniqueness, alas, is a gift an artist is born with. (Equilibrium)
UTE VÖLKER / ANGELIKA SHERIDAN – Leuchtfische
Völker is an accordionist, Sheridan plays different flutes. Theirs is indisputably improvisation, yet not according to the canons one might expect in this day and age. There are structures at work here, no protracted silences (although segments featuring intense quietness are present), no surpluses of air without notes – in a word, no reductionism. These strong-minded women are academically trained, and their inclination seems in effect to reside in the investigation of a field where the instances of modern classicalism and instant intuition meet, usually via a complete exploitation of full-grown timbres and technical solutions that do not rise above orthodoxy in a truly revolutionary way, despite the disentanglement from the unexciting sensations currently spreading across well-known “soundless” circles. Quite often these recordings situate the listener in a somewhat tense setting typical of a hesitant wait: the resolution is perhaps behind the corner, but seldom materializing manifestly. It’s not a type of listening experience that could be defined engaging or easy to swallow; and, every once in a while, the intelligence shown throughout the large part of the instrumental interaction leaves room to moments of slight stagnation, especially due to the not always functional combination of the separate voices. The duo is definitely competent, though: it surely takes several tries to acknowledge an incontestable maturity and, for the music itself, to reveal numerous degrees of temperament and profundity – and, in truth, a little dispassionateness - that attributes a distinct individuality to the whole venture. (Valve)
KELLY ROSSUM – Family
Searching for a remedy against the lethargic exhaustion deriving from years of listening to pedestrian jazz? In Minnesota they do well with Kelly Rossum, who – besides looking like the nicest of the guys, halfway through a démodé punk and myself (just kidding Kelly, but we do actually share a tiny bit of facial resemblance – I hadn’t realized last time…) – possesses one of the most beautifully clear-as-crystal trumpet voices heard in a long while. Family, who was published a year ago (a-hem), is a highly enjoyable effort, comprising material supplied by the leader, pianist Bryan Nichols and bassist Chris Bates, plus three covers. The drumming duties belong to JT Bates, who didn’t contribute with compositions. Difficult to say why a record noticeably rooted in tradition sounds this captivatingly unsullied; hearing this music makes you smirk for no apparent reason. Maybe it’s because Rossum and his comrades are reciprocally fine-tuned in a such a way that their instrumental moves elicit an aura of sorts, directly referring to a glorious past which they probably haven’t even experienced first-hand, given everybody’s relatively young age. The pieces are straightforwardly energizing, swinging with gusto and, when the tick is right, utilizing a correct dose of discursiveness that shows the technical ability of the participants, minus the showing off. And when introspection kicks in (as in Nichols’ splendid “Interlude”) we’re ready to put everything down and listen transfixed, thinking to itineraries of ineluctable occurrences perfectly coincident with our fleeting predisposition. The trumpeter governs the quartet without an iron fist, a performer endowed with inquisitive ears and a sense of intelligent altruism which literally renders this album a longed-for joyful intermission amidst so many bad news and worse vibes swallowing us up day in, day out. Thank you very much, boys – you’re a veritable breath of fresh air, and my wife has asked me to leave the CD available to her for repeating the session also when I’m absent - now, THAT really means something. Among the finest jazz albums of 2008: shame on this reviewer for coming to it late. (612 Sides)
Thursday, 20 August 2009
Three Good Ones From Presto!?
Presto!? is an Italian label run by Lorenzo Senni, the three releases in my possession (part of a catalogue of nine at this moment) dressed by sober white mini-gatefold sleeves with graphics that are definable as “chicly Spartan”. Things look promising enough on a first listen: I don’t smell a trace of snobbishness or arrogant dilettantism anywhere, the artists’ respectability a certification in that sense. Hopefully, Lorenzo is aiming higher (read “deeper”) than many of his presumptuous countrymen in terms of detached judgement of the effective necessity (and meaning) of what’s being produced. An encouraging start.
JOHN HUDAK – On And On
As it frequently occurs with Hudak, the structures introduced this time are decidedly elementary, in spite of the fact that the piece was motivated by the singing of a bird (more precisely, a black-capped chickadee) and that the final outcome depends on a computer, which “simplified” hours of continuous guitar strumming into a numeric potion containing the basic pitch information plus duration and timbre, the composer using this sequence to trigger a pseudo-dulcimer of sorts. As partially complex as the process may appear the 70 minutes flow smoothly, the music not exactly carving holes in the heart yet glowing of the same innocence of children when they bang those chunky little hands on a toy piano, the deriving plink-plonking a symbol of their sensible transparency in the first approach with an instrument. This CD comprises a sympathetically peaceful kind of consonant minimalism - halfway through a musical box and a slightly de-synchronized sequencer - which these ears salute with a smile, not asking for help to an already strained tolerance. I would not rule out, in worthwhile occasions, the use of On And On in “repeat” mode as mind-calming background: a very gracious, almost reassuring presence indeed.
LAWRENCE ENGLISH / TOM HALL – Euphonia
An ambient-oriented collaboration recorded in the first half of 2008, born from “various instruments, analog equipment, electronics” and – especially – the modification of what was achieved in the studio via a process of re-recording the existing sounds in peculiar environments such as “dilapidated water tanks on a farm”. Euphonia owes a lot to Eno, its best functionality enjoyable at just about perceptible volume, gentle vaporizations of morphing audio waves gradually gliding in and out the hearing range, leaving a chance for the transitory manifestations of real life’s unavoidable incidences to have a say in the overall consequence. Seven tracks whose lone implication is probably their sheer existence, not requiring a specialist’s degree to identify with the inherent structures, which – apart from a couple of instances in which a slightly more pronounced tendency to pulse is observable, an embryo of melodic movement coming to the forefront – are expressly designed to fluctuate, drift and waver, hiding the basic components to appear as a lattice of inorganic matters which nevertheless constitute an adequate balm for dead beat membranes. English and Hall managed to produce a useful CD despite the evident overpopulation of this musical area, which is a praiseworthy result per se.
WERNER DAFELDECKER – Long Dead Machines I-IX
This concise cycle for solo double bass by Dafeldecker apparently sounds as crude as the noise of metastatic lungs. At first one notices the percussive factor: in 29 minutes, not a single straight pitch, I mean something reproducible via humming “tones”. Add to this the persistently unremitting repetition of each rhythmic contour - track in, track out - and here’s a model of really severe starkness which does not leave a millimetre of space to anything remotely resembling “aural gratification”. This is the end of the description for those who approach this kind of matter shallowly. Now come to me, discerning people: this is a great record. Dafeldecker doesn’t give a damn about pleasing an audience - he’s looking for places in which the combinations of fingers, arco, strings and wood introduce those resonances that regular ears usually overlook, the implicit musicality of a crucial metrical code, the wonderful if short-lived aura of harmonics that are emitted when the instrument is hit in a certain spot. It’s there that the bass sings and breathes, and it’s also there that you will start distinguishing the dozens of patterns, crackles, swishes, whispers, bumps and knocks that Long Dead Machines keeps in custody. A nonconformist opus which demonstrates how a real musician works: finding a way of making music even through the most rudimentary elements - the same essentials that anyone could become aware of just by observing (that’s right – almost no one observes, much less listen anymore) - which get changed into righteous acoustic painting. Play extra loud, and fill the silences with your own vibrations and pulses.
JOHN HUDAK – On And On
As it frequently occurs with Hudak, the structures introduced this time are decidedly elementary, in spite of the fact that the piece was motivated by the singing of a bird (more precisely, a black-capped chickadee) and that the final outcome depends on a computer, which “simplified” hours of continuous guitar strumming into a numeric potion containing the basic pitch information plus duration and timbre, the composer using this sequence to trigger a pseudo-dulcimer of sorts. As partially complex as the process may appear the 70 minutes flow smoothly, the music not exactly carving holes in the heart yet glowing of the same innocence of children when they bang those chunky little hands on a toy piano, the deriving plink-plonking a symbol of their sensible transparency in the first approach with an instrument. This CD comprises a sympathetically peaceful kind of consonant minimalism - halfway through a musical box and a slightly de-synchronized sequencer - which these ears salute with a smile, not asking for help to an already strained tolerance. I would not rule out, in worthwhile occasions, the use of On And On in “repeat” mode as mind-calming background: a very gracious, almost reassuring presence indeed.
LAWRENCE ENGLISH / TOM HALL – Euphonia
An ambient-oriented collaboration recorded in the first half of 2008, born from “various instruments, analog equipment, electronics” and – especially – the modification of what was achieved in the studio via a process of re-recording the existing sounds in peculiar environments such as “dilapidated water tanks on a farm”. Euphonia owes a lot to Eno, its best functionality enjoyable at just about perceptible volume, gentle vaporizations of morphing audio waves gradually gliding in and out the hearing range, leaving a chance for the transitory manifestations of real life’s unavoidable incidences to have a say in the overall consequence. Seven tracks whose lone implication is probably their sheer existence, not requiring a specialist’s degree to identify with the inherent structures, which – apart from a couple of instances in which a slightly more pronounced tendency to pulse is observable, an embryo of melodic movement coming to the forefront – are expressly designed to fluctuate, drift and waver, hiding the basic components to appear as a lattice of inorganic matters which nevertheless constitute an adequate balm for dead beat membranes. English and Hall managed to produce a useful CD despite the evident overpopulation of this musical area, which is a praiseworthy result per se.
WERNER DAFELDECKER – Long Dead Machines I-IX
This concise cycle for solo double bass by Dafeldecker apparently sounds as crude as the noise of metastatic lungs. At first one notices the percussive factor: in 29 minutes, not a single straight pitch, I mean something reproducible via humming “tones”. Add to this the persistently unremitting repetition of each rhythmic contour - track in, track out - and here’s a model of really severe starkness which does not leave a millimetre of space to anything remotely resembling “aural gratification”. This is the end of the description for those who approach this kind of matter shallowly. Now come to me, discerning people: this is a great record. Dafeldecker doesn’t give a damn about pleasing an audience - he’s looking for places in which the combinations of fingers, arco, strings and wood introduce those resonances that regular ears usually overlook, the implicit musicality of a crucial metrical code, the wonderful if short-lived aura of harmonics that are emitted when the instrument is hit in a certain spot. It’s there that the bass sings and breathes, and it’s also there that you will start distinguishing the dozens of patterns, crackles, swishes, whispers, bumps and knocks that Long Dead Machines keeps in custody. A nonconformist opus which demonstrates how a real musician works: finding a way of making music even through the most rudimentary elements - the same essentials that anyone could become aware of just by observing (that’s right – almost no one observes, much less listen anymore) - which get changed into righteous acoustic painting. Play extra loud, and fill the silences with your own vibrations and pulses.
Wednesday, 19 August 2009
Poignant Errors, Monochrome Replicas
Near-excellence and head-scratching choices in this couple of releases from Taylor Deupree’s ever-prolific ventures.
TOMASZ BEDNARCZYK – Let’s Make Better Mistakes Tomorrow
The splendidly titled third outing by Bednarczyk, following two albums on Lawrence English’s Room40, Let’s Make Better Mistakes Tomorrow displays the essence of a insightful young man who, at only 23 years of age, shows that he’s already gone much deeper than many run-of-the-mill wallpaper generators by stretching processed sources – normal instruments such as guitar and piano - and spicing them with a modicum of digital dirtiness. The record’s sequence is structured like the opposite sides of a vinyl album: the initial five tracks are gorgeous loopscapes that give an idea of incommensurable vastness, glowing lights in a placid sea at sunset, in part symbolized by Joanna Kurkowska’s fabulous sleeve pictures. It’s that kind of resonance which instantly sets the mechanism of our interiority at work, the consequence a grief-stricken suspension eliciting apparently faded memories while retrieving the feel of warmth and the magnificent perfumes of adolescent solitude. After an interlocutory track for piano and domestic environmental recordings slightly blemished by a minimum of interference, the virtual B-side shifts the balance towards less contemplative, if still rather static deterioration of happiness, privileging vaguely ominous atmospheres characterized by lower frequencies and, in general, a non-shimmering type of sonority. Although I have a preference for the first half’s evocative power, there’s no doubt that this Polish artist is a figure that must be kept under close watch: if he doesn’t bend to the laws of mediocrity that sooner or later affect whoever works with drones and loops (except the indisputable masters), a bright future of emotional depictions is all but assured, and we’ll be there listening. (12k)
TU M’ – Monochromes Vol.1
The duo of Rossano Polidoro and Emiliano Romanelli, Tu M’ are a pretty well known item in the realm of current multimedia expression, even if my acquaintance with their body of work is extremely limited. Furthermore, I never trust what’s written on magazines and websites, be it positive or negative, without a deeper investigation. Quoting from the press release, “The Monochromes series is a collection of modular audio and video compositions for chamber ensemble”. Great, this enquirer thinks, fantasizing about some sort of transformation of the instrumental properties of a broken consort wandering around Gavin Bryars territories. Instead, the record begins with “Monochrome # 01”, the unashamed correspondence of the music with William Basinski’s heartbreaking loopery right there for us to “marvel” at in 14’34” of blatant similarity, only deprived of the “decay factor”. “Monochrome # 02” is undeniably better, although – again - not shining with originality: loops are still the foundation, yet this time their temperament belongs to the “muffled” genus, rendering the whole static to a greater extent and overwhelmingly cloudy; it works fine in any case, its effects on the mind welcomed with ease. The third chapter introduces a degree of refreshing dissonance, two/three relatively complex harmonic washes sluicing contiguously, over and over, similarly to asynchronous ripples drawing strange geometries in liquid mirrors. In the half-hour of “Monochrome # 04”, the song remains fundamentally the same: while there’s nothing to hold against the cuddling tolerability of this motionless permanence (which in this particular piece recalls a bit of Thomas Köner’s uninhabited vistas), as a mere listening experience the frozen recurrence of related foggy frequencies - minus the visual counterpart - makes probably less sense, despite a consistently entrancing aura that, let me stress it, does not reveal anything previously unheard, as nattily imbued of mesmeric mist as this stuff is. Had the initial Basinski rip-off been avoided, the final score would definitely be higher. (Line)
TOMASZ BEDNARCZYK – Let’s Make Better Mistakes Tomorrow
The splendidly titled third outing by Bednarczyk, following two albums on Lawrence English’s Room40, Let’s Make Better Mistakes Tomorrow displays the essence of a insightful young man who, at only 23 years of age, shows that he’s already gone much deeper than many run-of-the-mill wallpaper generators by stretching processed sources – normal instruments such as guitar and piano - and spicing them with a modicum of digital dirtiness. The record’s sequence is structured like the opposite sides of a vinyl album: the initial five tracks are gorgeous loopscapes that give an idea of incommensurable vastness, glowing lights in a placid sea at sunset, in part symbolized by Joanna Kurkowska’s fabulous sleeve pictures. It’s that kind of resonance which instantly sets the mechanism of our interiority at work, the consequence a grief-stricken suspension eliciting apparently faded memories while retrieving the feel of warmth and the magnificent perfumes of adolescent solitude. After an interlocutory track for piano and domestic environmental recordings slightly blemished by a minimum of interference, the virtual B-side shifts the balance towards less contemplative, if still rather static deterioration of happiness, privileging vaguely ominous atmospheres characterized by lower frequencies and, in general, a non-shimmering type of sonority. Although I have a preference for the first half’s evocative power, there’s no doubt that this Polish artist is a figure that must be kept under close watch: if he doesn’t bend to the laws of mediocrity that sooner or later affect whoever works with drones and loops (except the indisputable masters), a bright future of emotional depictions is all but assured, and we’ll be there listening. (12k)
TU M’ – Monochromes Vol.1
The duo of Rossano Polidoro and Emiliano Romanelli, Tu M’ are a pretty well known item in the realm of current multimedia expression, even if my acquaintance with their body of work is extremely limited. Furthermore, I never trust what’s written on magazines and websites, be it positive or negative, without a deeper investigation. Quoting from the press release, “The Monochromes series is a collection of modular audio and video compositions for chamber ensemble”. Great, this enquirer thinks, fantasizing about some sort of transformation of the instrumental properties of a broken consort wandering around Gavin Bryars territories. Instead, the record begins with “Monochrome # 01”, the unashamed correspondence of the music with William Basinski’s heartbreaking loopery right there for us to “marvel” at in 14’34” of blatant similarity, only deprived of the “decay factor”. “Monochrome # 02” is undeniably better, although – again - not shining with originality: loops are still the foundation, yet this time their temperament belongs to the “muffled” genus, rendering the whole static to a greater extent and overwhelmingly cloudy; it works fine in any case, its effects on the mind welcomed with ease. The third chapter introduces a degree of refreshing dissonance, two/three relatively complex harmonic washes sluicing contiguously, over and over, similarly to asynchronous ripples drawing strange geometries in liquid mirrors. In the half-hour of “Monochrome # 04”, the song remains fundamentally the same: while there’s nothing to hold against the cuddling tolerability of this motionless permanence (which in this particular piece recalls a bit of Thomas Köner’s uninhabited vistas), as a mere listening experience the frozen recurrence of related foggy frequencies - minus the visual counterpart - makes probably less sense, despite a consistently entrancing aura that, let me stress it, does not reveal anything previously unheard, as nattily imbued of mesmeric mist as this stuff is. Had the initial Basinski rip-off been avoided, the final score would definitely be higher. (Line)
Monday, 17 August 2009
Asmus Tietchens Triplet
Abfleischung (Die Stadt) is the twelfth chapter in the 20-CD reissue program that Jochen Schwarz’s label has been carrying on for several years now. It’s a very fascinating release for a number of reasons, the foremost being the ultra-tempore modernity of the content, a cycle of relatively short pieces (five minutes maximum) based on archival tapes that the German manipulator had recorded as a youngster between 1967 and 1970, and which he decided to “recycle”: not remix, recycle as the composer himself insists, because the process of utter transformation applied to those materials in 1989 – year in which the record came out – renders the acoustic substance completely unidentifiable and entirely Tietchens at the same time. The man was interested in the analysis of his own methods more than becoming subjugated by the sonic outcome, but there’s no question that most tracks are examples of advanced metamorphism, hints to a psychological kind of aural outrage rendering some of these tests almost concussive in their striking originality. Metallic deformations, implacable machineries, ominous industrial thrumming, one-legged rhythmic sequences, mechanical termites. And that unmistakable poetry coming from the treatment of voices, looped and/or misshapen, that literally seem to come from another sphere when they materialize. A great selection of ingredients that a devotee usually anticipates from Asmus Tietchens, and the addition of two bonus cuts – one of them, “Kryptophonie 1”, a pseudo-minimal, autistic/robotic seesaw which elicits emotional distress to say the least – just confirms an already evident superiority.
Eine Menge Papier (Auf Abwegen) is a CD EP that comprises a couple of tracks from a 7-inch previously published on the Austrian label Syntactic, two more which were scheduled for a subsequent release that ultimately didn’t happen and a fifth track which is described as a “study of sonic material in the same series”; the matter in question is paper, obviously processed like Tietchens has grown us used to. The results range from sounds that recall the pressure in the tubes of a hydraulic network to audio-graphic representations of walking over hundreds of cockroaches just rained from the sky while bionic frogs chant and android pigs intimidate humans in crusty-mud impassiveness. 20 minutes of classic, stone-hearted, remorseless Tietchens that only the experts will be able to completely agree to. There’s some measure of lyricism in cynicism, and the Hamburger is a master of this game.
Flächen Mit Figuren (Nonvisualobjects) perfectly symbolizes Tietchens’ penchant for the superimposition of different surfaces in a composition, with particular attention for the contrast between ethereal strata echoing in the background and more concretely defined accidents suddenly emerging, if only for brief durations, at the forefront. This use of opposite sonic characters is the basis of practically every track of the album, which is endowed with a fine blend of untried nuances and – anathema! – spirituality. Tietchens, a Cioran-influenced sceptic per antonomasia, is definitely not renowned for an interest in the divine, yet I’m sure that he – like any truly evolved man on the earth – disassembles and distillates his sources in search of the essential soul of an acoustic manifestation, therefore of phenomena that go beyond the restricted understanding of the average person. Asmus knows that sound is everything and keeps seeking incessantly, conscious about the fact that the unadulterated quintessence of life resides somewhere in there. That these manifestations appear as a collapsed chorale, or an even-tempered mixture of material and abstract, or just resemble a clicking fire lighter drenched in twisted reverb, is not important. What matters most is the immediate recognisability of an artistic voice developed for well over 40 years and whose necessity of expression holds its owner perennially on the fringes of the experimental scene, quite distant from a plastic-made meritocracy based on illusory fame and futile accolades but ultimately closer to the fundamental reason of our short (and probably useless, too) existence, which unquestionably lies in a remote spot amidst those strange resonances.
Eine Menge Papier (Auf Abwegen) is a CD EP that comprises a couple of tracks from a 7-inch previously published on the Austrian label Syntactic, two more which were scheduled for a subsequent release that ultimately didn’t happen and a fifth track which is described as a “study of sonic material in the same series”; the matter in question is paper, obviously processed like Tietchens has grown us used to. The results range from sounds that recall the pressure in the tubes of a hydraulic network to audio-graphic representations of walking over hundreds of cockroaches just rained from the sky while bionic frogs chant and android pigs intimidate humans in crusty-mud impassiveness. 20 minutes of classic, stone-hearted, remorseless Tietchens that only the experts will be able to completely agree to. There’s some measure of lyricism in cynicism, and the Hamburger is a master of this game.
Flächen Mit Figuren (Nonvisualobjects) perfectly symbolizes Tietchens’ penchant for the superimposition of different surfaces in a composition, with particular attention for the contrast between ethereal strata echoing in the background and more concretely defined accidents suddenly emerging, if only for brief durations, at the forefront. This use of opposite sonic characters is the basis of practically every track of the album, which is endowed with a fine blend of untried nuances and – anathema! – spirituality. Tietchens, a Cioran-influenced sceptic per antonomasia, is definitely not renowned for an interest in the divine, yet I’m sure that he – like any truly evolved man on the earth – disassembles and distillates his sources in search of the essential soul of an acoustic manifestation, therefore of phenomena that go beyond the restricted understanding of the average person. Asmus knows that sound is everything and keeps seeking incessantly, conscious about the fact that the unadulterated quintessence of life resides somewhere in there. That these manifestations appear as a collapsed chorale, or an even-tempered mixture of material and abstract, or just resemble a clicking fire lighter drenched in twisted reverb, is not important. What matters most is the immediate recognisability of an artistic voice developed for well over 40 years and whose necessity of expression holds its owner perennially on the fringes of the experimental scene, quite distant from a plastic-made meritocracy based on illusory fame and futile accolades but ultimately closer to the fundamental reason of our short (and probably useless, too) existence, which unquestionably lies in a remote spot amidst those strange resonances.
Sunday, 16 August 2009
Uneasy Listening
Five suggestions for a serene end of August, provided that you don’t have a family (tolerant wives are accepted) or nervous neighbours.
DAS SYNTHETISCHE MISCHGEWEBE – Neunundvierzig Entgleisungen
In the hope that I transcribed the spelling correctly, this unpronounceable release (not disease) is a double 10-inch with a splendid cover artwork by Françoise Vigot (whose graphic beauty is most regrettably scarred, on my copy, by a huge “PROMO” marker graffiti. Are you so afraid of me selling stuff on eBay, guys?) by the deus ex-machina behind the DSM project Guido Hübner, who – working alone after years of illustrious collaborations - welcomes us with four slices of studio mistreatments of practically unidentifiable sources, reducing the whole to a parade of semi-disturbing noises and capricious discharges which at times sound like a proper composition yet grow to be predictable with the passage of time (which is absurd in a way, given the Dada-meets-Tietchens orientation of the creature). Yes, it also happens in the best families: what seems erratic and unmanageable can become almost prescribed, determining the checking of my wristwatch to see how long the fourth movement will take to end. The fact that one has to flip sides twice to hear - more or less - a similar kind of music everywhere doesn’t help. Beware: the record plays at 45 rpm although the label says that it’s a 33. As a joke it didn’t work with this barking man, a total hater of excessive effort in the decoding of useless mysteries outside the very sonic content. (Auf Abwegen)
BIOSPHERE – Wireless
Or, if you will, Live At The Arnolfini, Bristol. Admittedly, an on-site performance by a man who’s considered a master of meticulous aural construction (and whose music usually strikes for its impressively uncontaminated luminosity) got me halfway through curiosity and refusal – I am gradually, inexorably shifting my preference to studio-generated recordings - but class being class Geir Jenssen knows how to deliver rewarding soundscapes even in such a circumstance. This CD comprises a concert recorded in 2007 during the Touch 25 festival by what the press release calls “the doyen of sound recordists, Chris Watson”. A few tired moments aside (those pre-taped voices are not inexplicably enthralling as perhaps Biosphere desired, indeed taking a portion of magic away from the overall mood when they appear, and certain synthetic rhythm patterns dangerously approach kitsch) Jenssen manages to appear great as usual with his fantastic loops, among the most mesmerizing one can hear today, in essence confirming to have (almost) everything under control in every occasion. Wireless is not a chef d’oeuvre, and probably doesn’t belong in the artist’s top five. Still, it was played thrice in two days, so that must mean something. (Touch)
GUIDO MÖBIUS – Gebirge
Another Guido from Germany (I always wondered about the large diffusion of this Italian name in that country), who usually sweetens the audience’s ears with contaminations of elegantly anarchic electronic niceties and melancholic acoustic cuteness, this time surprises us with a bizarrely vivacious album in which instruments sampled in a rhythmically efficient way are intertwined with vocals based upon invented languages by “4-track virtuoso Andreas Gogol aka go:gol” (pleased to meet you). The result is a series of often hilarious songs which exploit superficial traits of the most commonly identified genres, interlocking them in pastiches apparently sung by a Russian-African meta-creature who frequently sounds recorded backwards while gagging. The music is also good for dancing, more or less awkwardly. It’s not the deepest of records and, in truth, tends to lose a bit of steam in its final third or so; but utilized sparingly and in the right moment it works great, producing a few episodes of amusing weirdness. (Karaoke Kalk)
KKNULL / JOHN WIESE – Mondo Paradoxa
Mondo Paradoxa is the result of a two-year collaborative mail exchange between artists who have found fame and fortune (just kidding) in the realms of the advanced, so to speak, forms of noise but are also able to compose something interesting with it, contrarily to 99,9 % of what's typically exalted by the "specialized" press. Although the character of this music is definitely inimical to any hope of relaxing listen - at least for the untrained unfortunates - the sound and the fury are mostly well-channelled: more than feeling raped by sheer racket one's fairly happy to be transported in dimensions comparable to a small empire of punkish suggestions often permeated by an inclination to minimalist repetition. The couple worked with pertinacity to the construction of a knotty tissue dirtied with a kind of semi-pleasing electroacoustic plankton which only very rarely degenerates into quasi-vulgarity, even the most brittle fragments of reality cemented in a sufficiently cohesive whole. Beyond electronic screaming, warped samples, sinister sequences and irrational distortions we can see a predilection for the investigation of inaccessible spaces and the predisposition to a consecutiveness of events which makes clear that these men are not illiterates trying to look as rocket scientists, they’re instead a pair of researchers who may leave someone struggling with a difficultly tolerable aesthetic yet clearly respect a few basic rules, in absence of which this type of release is easily associable to rubbish. On the contrary, there's still a good measure of musicality here, all for the better. Intriguing stuff, and be careful when listening by headphones: some of these frequencies bite. (Auf Abwegen)
MEERKAT – Kapnos
A collective project involving several of the principal Italian operators in the area of post-dark-ambient-cum-natural-elements, a bandwagon that in this particular country has meant shelter for practically anybody who wakes up one morning thinking “If Vidna Obmana, Lustmord, Köner, Roach … put your additional hundred names here… can become famous with something like this, why not me?”. The participants in Kapnos (Greek for “smoke”) are Luca Bergero, Andrea Ferraris, Paolo Ippoliti, Laura Lovreglio, Andrea Marutti, Fabio Selvafiorita, Luca Sigurtà, Matteo Uggeri, Davide Valecchi and Adriano Zanni. I’ll gladly do without the semi-cryptic monikers, also a commonplace of sorts in this macrocosm: perhaps there’s a law preventing individuals from releasing droning material and signing it with their real name. To end with the list of negatives, the field recordings - although generally well realized and expertly positioned in the mix - mostly belong to the worn-out sphere. Is there someone, somewhere, who has NOT taped a rainstorm or sheer gurgling water yet? (*) Is it still necessary to camouflage chatting people (among them, ironically, a Roman-accented fellow who talks of Glenn Branca: not bad for a potentially meditative piece) amidst cavernous rumbles and sublunary humming? It all smells so “Pink Floyd circa 1973”, not making much sense today. Having said that, at least three tracks in this disc are very good, helping to place it in the upper half of the regional average. And the winners are… “One”, “Six” and “Seven” (with “Five” almost at the same level). Honourable mention to Andrea Ferraris’ guitar and electronics, the latter supposedly at the core of the profoundly beautiful resonance heard throughout “Seven”. In a nutshell, this reviewer loves the quality of the drones significantly more than the environmental banality. And since I’m a nice guy, comments about MB’s “explanatory” sleeve notes will be spared. (Afe / Nighthawks / Ctrl+Alt+Canc / Grey Sparkle)
(*) STOP PRESS: In this last CD, the answer is a "half-yes". There's indeed water, but no rainstorms: I mistook the deep breathing of wind over fire for distant thunders (sorry, Fabio, and thanks to Matteo for the heads-up). I'll keep the rant for a next meteorological turbulence, which will surely come sooner than later...
DAS SYNTHETISCHE MISCHGEWEBE – Neunundvierzig Entgleisungen
In the hope that I transcribed the spelling correctly, this unpronounceable release (not disease) is a double 10-inch with a splendid cover artwork by Françoise Vigot (whose graphic beauty is most regrettably scarred, on my copy, by a huge “PROMO” marker graffiti. Are you so afraid of me selling stuff on eBay, guys?) by the deus ex-machina behind the DSM project Guido Hübner, who – working alone after years of illustrious collaborations - welcomes us with four slices of studio mistreatments of practically unidentifiable sources, reducing the whole to a parade of semi-disturbing noises and capricious discharges which at times sound like a proper composition yet grow to be predictable with the passage of time (which is absurd in a way, given the Dada-meets-Tietchens orientation of the creature). Yes, it also happens in the best families: what seems erratic and unmanageable can become almost prescribed, determining the checking of my wristwatch to see how long the fourth movement will take to end. The fact that one has to flip sides twice to hear - more or less - a similar kind of music everywhere doesn’t help. Beware: the record plays at 45 rpm although the label says that it’s a 33. As a joke it didn’t work with this barking man, a total hater of excessive effort in the decoding of useless mysteries outside the very sonic content. (Auf Abwegen)
BIOSPHERE – Wireless
Or, if you will, Live At The Arnolfini, Bristol. Admittedly, an on-site performance by a man who’s considered a master of meticulous aural construction (and whose music usually strikes for its impressively uncontaminated luminosity) got me halfway through curiosity and refusal – I am gradually, inexorably shifting my preference to studio-generated recordings - but class being class Geir Jenssen knows how to deliver rewarding soundscapes even in such a circumstance. This CD comprises a concert recorded in 2007 during the Touch 25 festival by what the press release calls “the doyen of sound recordists, Chris Watson”. A few tired moments aside (those pre-taped voices are not inexplicably enthralling as perhaps Biosphere desired, indeed taking a portion of magic away from the overall mood when they appear, and certain synthetic rhythm patterns dangerously approach kitsch) Jenssen manages to appear great as usual with his fantastic loops, among the most mesmerizing one can hear today, in essence confirming to have (almost) everything under control in every occasion. Wireless is not a chef d’oeuvre, and probably doesn’t belong in the artist’s top five. Still, it was played thrice in two days, so that must mean something. (Touch)
GUIDO MÖBIUS – Gebirge
Another Guido from Germany (I always wondered about the large diffusion of this Italian name in that country), who usually sweetens the audience’s ears with contaminations of elegantly anarchic electronic niceties and melancholic acoustic cuteness, this time surprises us with a bizarrely vivacious album in which instruments sampled in a rhythmically efficient way are intertwined with vocals based upon invented languages by “4-track virtuoso Andreas Gogol aka go:gol” (pleased to meet you). The result is a series of often hilarious songs which exploit superficial traits of the most commonly identified genres, interlocking them in pastiches apparently sung by a Russian-African meta-creature who frequently sounds recorded backwards while gagging. The music is also good for dancing, more or less awkwardly. It’s not the deepest of records and, in truth, tends to lose a bit of steam in its final third or so; but utilized sparingly and in the right moment it works great, producing a few episodes of amusing weirdness. (Karaoke Kalk)
KKNULL / JOHN WIESE – Mondo Paradoxa
Mondo Paradoxa is the result of a two-year collaborative mail exchange between artists who have found fame and fortune (just kidding) in the realms of the advanced, so to speak, forms of noise but are also able to compose something interesting with it, contrarily to 99,9 % of what's typically exalted by the "specialized" press. Although the character of this music is definitely inimical to any hope of relaxing listen - at least for the untrained unfortunates - the sound and the fury are mostly well-channelled: more than feeling raped by sheer racket one's fairly happy to be transported in dimensions comparable to a small empire of punkish suggestions often permeated by an inclination to minimalist repetition. The couple worked with pertinacity to the construction of a knotty tissue dirtied with a kind of semi-pleasing electroacoustic plankton which only very rarely degenerates into quasi-vulgarity, even the most brittle fragments of reality cemented in a sufficiently cohesive whole. Beyond electronic screaming, warped samples, sinister sequences and irrational distortions we can see a predilection for the investigation of inaccessible spaces and the predisposition to a consecutiveness of events which makes clear that these men are not illiterates trying to look as rocket scientists, they’re instead a pair of researchers who may leave someone struggling with a difficultly tolerable aesthetic yet clearly respect a few basic rules, in absence of which this type of release is easily associable to rubbish. On the contrary, there's still a good measure of musicality here, all for the better. Intriguing stuff, and be careful when listening by headphones: some of these frequencies bite. (Auf Abwegen)
MEERKAT – Kapnos
A collective project involving several of the principal Italian operators in the area of post-dark-ambient-cum-natural-elements, a bandwagon that in this particular country has meant shelter for practically anybody who wakes up one morning thinking “If Vidna Obmana, Lustmord, Köner, Roach … put your additional hundred names here… can become famous with something like this, why not me?”. The participants in Kapnos (Greek for “smoke”) are Luca Bergero, Andrea Ferraris, Paolo Ippoliti, Laura Lovreglio, Andrea Marutti, Fabio Selvafiorita, Luca Sigurtà, Matteo Uggeri, Davide Valecchi and Adriano Zanni. I’ll gladly do without the semi-cryptic monikers, also a commonplace of sorts in this macrocosm: perhaps there’s a law preventing individuals from releasing droning material and signing it with their real name. To end with the list of negatives, the field recordings - although generally well realized and expertly positioned in the mix - mostly belong to the worn-out sphere. Is there someone, somewhere, who has NOT taped a rainstorm or sheer gurgling water yet? (*) Is it still necessary to camouflage chatting people (among them, ironically, a Roman-accented fellow who talks of Glenn Branca: not bad for a potentially meditative piece) amidst cavernous rumbles and sublunary humming? It all smells so “Pink Floyd circa 1973”, not making much sense today. Having said that, at least three tracks in this disc are very good, helping to place it in the upper half of the regional average. And the winners are… “One”, “Six” and “Seven” (with “Five” almost at the same level). Honourable mention to Andrea Ferraris’ guitar and electronics, the latter supposedly at the core of the profoundly beautiful resonance heard throughout “Seven”. In a nutshell, this reviewer loves the quality of the drones significantly more than the environmental banality. And since I’m a nice guy, comments about MB’s “explanatory” sleeve notes will be spared. (Afe / Nighthawks / Ctrl+Alt+Canc / Grey Sparkle)
(*) STOP PRESS: In this last CD, the answer is a "half-yes". There's indeed water, but no rainstorms: I mistook the deep breathing of wind over fire for distant thunders (sorry, Fabio, and thanks to Matteo for the heads-up). I'll keep the rant for a next meteorological turbulence, which will surely come sooner than later...
Tuesday, 4 August 2009
More From Moonjune
One thing is for sure: Leonardo Pavkovic’s label does not release records that a reviewer can easily dismiss with a couple of sentences and throw back in the heap. This stuff must be listened carefully before releasing any judgement; sometimes, precious diamonds might be found in the thickest mud.
SIMAK DIALOG – Demi Masa
Although this Indonesian outfit has arrived at the fifth album, Demi Masa represents my opening contact with their output. Led by Jakarta-based composer Riza Arshad, whose main instrumental shade should be individuated in the typical “ringing and shimmering” of a Fender Rhodes (he doubles on acoustic piano and analog synthesizers), the group tries to reach an acceptable balance between a multitude of elements generated by the superimposition of different geographic, cultural and musical roots in search of the Holy Grail of “fusion”, that over-abused definition that critics have been sticking on everything from Miles Davis to the worst kind of Holiday Inn-tinged lounge music. Combining an obvious influence – that of the Balinese gamelan, its rhythmic drive informing a sizeable portion of these 70 minutes, with just a smidgen of “human inexactness” – with faint echoes from a not-so-remote path (John McLaughlin’s Shakti to In A Silent Way, Oregon to Canterbury-hued passages – some keyboard parts made me think of Dave Stewart in National Health’s most lyrical routes – and, somehow, even a little “pre-commercial era” Santana) the band manages to sound satisfyingly committed, though one does not necessarily share the enthusiastic hails to the “global-fusion masterpiece” quoted by the press blurb. But an enjoyable record, yes – definitely and without problems, especially if you’re still looking back at the seventies with a pinch of homesickness.
COPERNICUS – Disappearance
The day after being knocked down by the Savoldelli/Sharp semi-fiasco, your gibbering host tried to regroup by inserting this record in the player. The first thing to come out from the speakers was a gravelly voice starting a series of half-theatrical, half-threatening declamatory statements surrounded by not-really-unconventional, rock-ish instrumental accompaniment. “Oh, no!” was my gut reaction. I’m not a lover of spoken word and thought that the 77 minutes would have been torture. I was dead wrong: patience was all this writer needed to acquaint himself with Copernicus (born as Joseph Smalkowski) a performance poet whose raspy timbre, with which the well-disposed listener gets confident as the minutes elapse, is a cross of Captain Beefheart and the most scathing version of Randy Newman. What he offers in Disappearance – convincingly, we’d have to say – is an unrelenting tirade, including dozens of variations on the basic theme, about this essential concept: nothing exists, everything is illusion. The universe itself, which in theory humans should become one with, does not subsist either – and of course the same beings are deluding themselves of actually living. The nucleus of Copernicus’ biting dissertations revolves around the analysis of subatomic matter, theories which he exposes with the clarity of a lucid philosopher but also with the attitude of a visionary drunkard. Believe it or not, going on with the listening experience means that you get somewhat tangled in this man’s prophetic mindset, and the pulsating, often scintillating background offered by the superb supporting band (which includes musical director Pierce Turner, Larry Kirwan, Mike Fazio, Bob Hoffnar, Raimundo Penaforte, Cesar Aragundi, Fred Parcells, Rob Thomas, Matty Fillou, Marvin Wright, George Rush, Thomas Hamlin and Mark Brotter – “bravo” to all!) is more and more emotional, explosive and involving with the passage of time, meshing free improvisation, blues and Mardi Gras jazz with extreme ease. Great record, surely not for everybody. A question remains: how come that I never heard of this man, not even by name, until yesterday? At times, gone forty-two years of sound exploration, acknowledging ignorance is quite depressing. In music, I mean. As far as people’s illusions are concerned, this undesired informant is an out-and-out corporeal encyclopaedia.
SIMAK DIALOG – Demi Masa
Although this Indonesian outfit has arrived at the fifth album, Demi Masa represents my opening contact with their output. Led by Jakarta-based composer Riza Arshad, whose main instrumental shade should be individuated in the typical “ringing and shimmering” of a Fender Rhodes (he doubles on acoustic piano and analog synthesizers), the group tries to reach an acceptable balance between a multitude of elements generated by the superimposition of different geographic, cultural and musical roots in search of the Holy Grail of “fusion”, that over-abused definition that critics have been sticking on everything from Miles Davis to the worst kind of Holiday Inn-tinged lounge music. Combining an obvious influence – that of the Balinese gamelan, its rhythmic drive informing a sizeable portion of these 70 minutes, with just a smidgen of “human inexactness” – with faint echoes from a not-so-remote path (John McLaughlin’s Shakti to In A Silent Way, Oregon to Canterbury-hued passages – some keyboard parts made me think of Dave Stewart in National Health’s most lyrical routes – and, somehow, even a little “pre-commercial era” Santana) the band manages to sound satisfyingly committed, though one does not necessarily share the enthusiastic hails to the “global-fusion masterpiece” quoted by the press blurb. But an enjoyable record, yes – definitely and without problems, especially if you’re still looking back at the seventies with a pinch of homesickness.
COPERNICUS – Disappearance
The day after being knocked down by the Savoldelli/Sharp semi-fiasco, your gibbering host tried to regroup by inserting this record in the player. The first thing to come out from the speakers was a gravelly voice starting a series of half-theatrical, half-threatening declamatory statements surrounded by not-really-unconventional, rock-ish instrumental accompaniment. “Oh, no!” was my gut reaction. I’m not a lover of spoken word and thought that the 77 minutes would have been torture. I was dead wrong: patience was all this writer needed to acquaint himself with Copernicus (born as Joseph Smalkowski) a performance poet whose raspy timbre, with which the well-disposed listener gets confident as the minutes elapse, is a cross of Captain Beefheart and the most scathing version of Randy Newman. What he offers in Disappearance – convincingly, we’d have to say – is an unrelenting tirade, including dozens of variations on the basic theme, about this essential concept: nothing exists, everything is illusion. The universe itself, which in theory humans should become one with, does not subsist either – and of course the same beings are deluding themselves of actually living. The nucleus of Copernicus’ biting dissertations revolves around the analysis of subatomic matter, theories which he exposes with the clarity of a lucid philosopher but also with the attitude of a visionary drunkard. Believe it or not, going on with the listening experience means that you get somewhat tangled in this man’s prophetic mindset, and the pulsating, often scintillating background offered by the superb supporting band (which includes musical director Pierce Turner, Larry Kirwan, Mike Fazio, Bob Hoffnar, Raimundo Penaforte, Cesar Aragundi, Fred Parcells, Rob Thomas, Matty Fillou, Marvin Wright, George Rush, Thomas Hamlin and Mark Brotter – “bravo” to all!) is more and more emotional, explosive and involving with the passage of time, meshing free improvisation, blues and Mardi Gras jazz with extreme ease. Great record, surely not for everybody. A question remains: how come that I never heard of this man, not even by name, until yesterday? At times, gone forty-two years of sound exploration, acknowledging ignorance is quite depressing. In music, I mean. As far as people’s illusions are concerned, this undesired informant is an out-and-out corporeal encyclopaedia.
Sunday, 2 August 2009
“For Chrissake, Is There Anything This Guy Doesn’t Like?”
This was a derisive question indirectly forwarded to yours truly by an unnamed participant to a forum about “critics” (a category to which this writer begs not to belong) in a pretty renowned website a while back. The answer is “yes, there is”, even if I don’t particularly love penning negative reviews, as repeatedly told. Let’s just say that when disposable records are received by nonentities, most probably they won’t be reviewed. But when the expectations are higher, the involved names are known and I ultimately remain dissatisfied with the music, an explanation might be required.
RADU MALFATTI / TAKU UNAMI – Goat Vs Donkey
The reasons behind my non-appreciative response to this album (released by Taumaturgia) are not necessarily related to the (rare) sounds that Malfatti and Unami emit, which can be easily summarized in a few surges of low-frequency vibration and sparse schisms – presumably, objects and computer - mainly on the clattering/hastily clicking/cymbal-esque side, which sometimes attempt to mesh but, more often, remain innocuous in their naked coldness (maybe excluding a couple of domestic appliance-like humming washes). Treat instead this write-up as a symbolic lament for a whole bunch of current EAI releases, not as a personal attack against the Spanish label, Malfatti or Unami. First of all, I’ve grown sick and tired of having the environmental background practically dictating the direction of a record – as it happens in the initial part of Goat Vs Donkey - rather than the musical content itself. You may turn this rant into an appeal: let’s not release live recordings of erstwhile (no pun intended) “new silence” - ha! - until inappropriate factors are reduced to a bare minimum. Playing a CD only to hear external traffic, squeaking chairs, audience noise-cum-ever-present-coughing, even the quiet hush surrounding the inactivity of the performers, has become a silly practice that lets us observe the development of yet another format. If – as in this circumstance – the “music” is insignificant enough per se (because what’s comprised here is indeed shallow, in contrast to the weighty name of the participants) then placing it under such a common denominator - together with a hundred similar episodes of the same breed - means that everything this sort of artistic expression was striving for has by now taken the semblance of a well-rehearsed joke. This set was repeatedly analyzed, in every possible way: headphones, speakers, soft and loud volume, shut and open windows. It just doesn’t work, and no intellectual prescription to save the writer from his alleged ignorance will be followed. Let me say it again: this is the emblematic pictogram of a rapidly expanding plague, which authorizes the publication of performances that are not worthy of remembrance, except perhaps for those who actually attended them. As far as studio sessions are concerned, I’m definitely still willing to listen carefully, but the echoes from the outside world sound better when I find myself amidst them, not on a disc, unless they’re the subject matter.
BORIS SAVOLDELLI / ELLIOTT SHARP – Protoplasmic
When I received this record from Moonjune, my curiosity was immediately tickled by the lengthy press release, who tells the story of Sharp being “blown away” by Savoldelli’s first solo CD Insanology (unluckily not heard in this house) and portrays a sort of multitask monster specialized in sophisticated vocal techniques such as “diplophony, triplophony, flutophony and criptomelody”. Wow. Having also spotted the name of Jay Clayton among the teachers with whom the man has studied, the expectations zoomed. At the end of the program – which, to put it mildly, is pretty wearisome to listen to in its entirety – this writer’s impression was something along the lines of “a few passable inventions amidst a jumble of stereotyped electronic manipulations, with Sharp (guitars, sax, electronics) more or less as himself and Savoldelli (vocals, electronics) the facsimile of a Percy Howard/Demetrio Stratos hybrid, with a higher degree of cyber-chaos”. Specifically, the problems lie here: 1) The über-advanced mental picture of E# is always several stages ahead – not only of this particular partner, but practically everybody – so whoever attempts a duet with the New Yorker will do good not to try and overwhelm his crushing combination of rationality and convention-shattering digital dexterity. This didn’t happen, Protoplasmic often appearing as a veritable war of attrition rather than a collaboration. 2) Too many pedals, effects and knobs. The music, at times, goes very near to resembling an incoherent mess, no matter the angle you observe it from. It grows quite tiresome on the auricular membranes time and again. There’s no breathing, no vital sparkle despite the incessant cascade of acid bubbles. 3) Finally, and most honestly: after scrupulous analysis, it doesn’t look to me that Savoldelli (minus pitch-modifying devices) is the owner of this phenomenal array of oral resources. Ever heard of Phil Minton? On top of that I’d never, ever use the Italian language – Boris does it a number of times - when lateral thinking and sheer electroacoustic research should be involved, especially with a high-caliber sonic scientist like Sharp; to these ears - in 2009 - it sounds démodé, dusty, frankly annoying. Not on the laughable levels of mid-70s Battiato (to this day, the latter’s pseudo-esoteric rants sound as cheap as a fake shamanic ceremony in a village for tourists) but scarcely useful for this kind of project, for sure. Additional chances will be definitely given to this album, but the serious doubt that my opinion will change lingers on.
RADU MALFATTI / TAKU UNAMI – Goat Vs Donkey
The reasons behind my non-appreciative response to this album (released by Taumaturgia) are not necessarily related to the (rare) sounds that Malfatti and Unami emit, which can be easily summarized in a few surges of low-frequency vibration and sparse schisms – presumably, objects and computer - mainly on the clattering/hastily clicking/cymbal-esque side, which sometimes attempt to mesh but, more often, remain innocuous in their naked coldness (maybe excluding a couple of domestic appliance-like humming washes). Treat instead this write-up as a symbolic lament for a whole bunch of current EAI releases, not as a personal attack against the Spanish label, Malfatti or Unami. First of all, I’ve grown sick and tired of having the environmental background practically dictating the direction of a record – as it happens in the initial part of Goat Vs Donkey - rather than the musical content itself. You may turn this rant into an appeal: let’s not release live recordings of erstwhile (no pun intended) “new silence” - ha! - until inappropriate factors are reduced to a bare minimum. Playing a CD only to hear external traffic, squeaking chairs, audience noise-cum-ever-present-coughing, even the quiet hush surrounding the inactivity of the performers, has become a silly practice that lets us observe the development of yet another format. If – as in this circumstance – the “music” is insignificant enough per se (because what’s comprised here is indeed shallow, in contrast to the weighty name of the participants) then placing it under such a common denominator - together with a hundred similar episodes of the same breed - means that everything this sort of artistic expression was striving for has by now taken the semblance of a well-rehearsed joke. This set was repeatedly analyzed, in every possible way: headphones, speakers, soft and loud volume, shut and open windows. It just doesn’t work, and no intellectual prescription to save the writer from his alleged ignorance will be followed. Let me say it again: this is the emblematic pictogram of a rapidly expanding plague, which authorizes the publication of performances that are not worthy of remembrance, except perhaps for those who actually attended them. As far as studio sessions are concerned, I’m definitely still willing to listen carefully, but the echoes from the outside world sound better when I find myself amidst them, not on a disc, unless they’re the subject matter.
BORIS SAVOLDELLI / ELLIOTT SHARP – Protoplasmic
When I received this record from Moonjune, my curiosity was immediately tickled by the lengthy press release, who tells the story of Sharp being “blown away” by Savoldelli’s first solo CD Insanology (unluckily not heard in this house) and portrays a sort of multitask monster specialized in sophisticated vocal techniques such as “diplophony, triplophony, flutophony and criptomelody”. Wow. Having also spotted the name of Jay Clayton among the teachers with whom the man has studied, the expectations zoomed. At the end of the program – which, to put it mildly, is pretty wearisome to listen to in its entirety – this writer’s impression was something along the lines of “a few passable inventions amidst a jumble of stereotyped electronic manipulations, with Sharp (guitars, sax, electronics) more or less as himself and Savoldelli (vocals, electronics) the facsimile of a Percy Howard/Demetrio Stratos hybrid, with a higher degree of cyber-chaos”. Specifically, the problems lie here: 1) The über-advanced mental picture of E# is always several stages ahead – not only of this particular partner, but practically everybody – so whoever attempts a duet with the New Yorker will do good not to try and overwhelm his crushing combination of rationality and convention-shattering digital dexterity. This didn’t happen, Protoplasmic often appearing as a veritable war of attrition rather than a collaboration. 2) Too many pedals, effects and knobs. The music, at times, goes very near to resembling an incoherent mess, no matter the angle you observe it from. It grows quite tiresome on the auricular membranes time and again. There’s no breathing, no vital sparkle despite the incessant cascade of acid bubbles. 3) Finally, and most honestly: after scrupulous analysis, it doesn’t look to me that Savoldelli (minus pitch-modifying devices) is the owner of this phenomenal array of oral resources. Ever heard of Phil Minton? On top of that I’d never, ever use the Italian language – Boris does it a number of times - when lateral thinking and sheer electroacoustic research should be involved, especially with a high-caliber sonic scientist like Sharp; to these ears - in 2009 - it sounds démodé, dusty, frankly annoying. Not on the laughable levels of mid-70s Battiato (to this day, the latter’s pseudo-esoteric rants sound as cheap as a fake shamanic ceremony in a village for tourists) but scarcely useful for this kind of project, for sure. Additional chances will be definitely given to this album, but the serious doubt that my opinion will change lingers on.
Saturday, 1 August 2009
Memories Of Mr.23 (The Alfred Harth Chronicles)
MORE WONDERMENT FROM THE JUST MUSIC ERA
2009 is a fundamental moment in Alfred Harth’s life, in that he celebrates both the 60th birthday (on September 28th) and a 40-year career’s “jubilee”. We already talked about Just Music, one of the first improvisation ensembles recorded on ECM, whose activities were tragically under-documented to date. Luckily, Harth is retrieving additional material from the archives, these three records constituting as a good introduction as any to the collective’s stimulating methods. All of this great stuff is now available from the instigator himself through the Laubhuette imprint, and it comes without saying that you’d better start to be more aware of the roots of instrumental ad-libbing as opposed to having some “prophet of silence” dry your wallet with a hour of coughs, creaks and outside motorbikes surrounding two single “pings” and a “whirr”.
TRIOS
Extraordinarily good-sounding, given that the recordings occurred in March 1970, the tracks contained by this disc - strangely enough - do not feature Harth but present a selection of improvisations by two dissimilar trios. In the first, Michael Sell (trumpet), Franz Volhard (bass) and Thomas Cremer (drums) show that brief disquisitions can yield excellent results. Sell is obviously a protagonist, his phrasing voluble without preponderance, a constant melodic resourcefulness at the basis of an invigorating cross of swiftness and concomitance in admirable interaction with the “fractured rhythm” section. If this piece has a defect, that should be its shortness. We’re soon rewarded by a superb “clean” set comprising again Volhard (this time on cello), Johannes Krämer (acoustic guitar) and Peter Stock (bass). This lengthier series is the ideal evidence of the sensitiveness-informed technical eminence of the musicians, who interact alternating exhilaration and open-mindedness during exchanges that range from sheer ebullience to classically-scented, chamber-like reflective interpretations of self-determination. Even within the same trio, the inherent subdivisions (practically, duos in three different combinations) reveal an “adult” approach to mutual give-and-take informed by a taste for first-rate tones which stamps this collection with a “not-to-be-missed” seal.
GROUPS & DUOS
Just listening to the radiophonic excerpt which opens the CD, recorded at Hessischer Rundfunk in 1968 and featuring snippets of interview (in German) with a 18-year old Harth - who sounds like a well-trained host in answering the real host’s questions - is enough to make one instantly curious. Yet it is once again the incredible maturity of the music presented, intelligently sequenced in the subsequent tracks, which must be taken into account to establish the absolute importance of these archival materials. These pieces – fantastic how the typical background hum contributes to the fascination during the playback – appear as a cross-pollination of atonal thematic jazz and instant-reaction heterodoxy - without excess of transcendental euphoria - in perennial recusant enlightenment. The chief initiator, on tenor sax, is flanked by Dieter Herrman on trombone, besides the usual suspects Krämer (guitar), Volhard (cello), Stock (bass) and Cremer, here puzzlingly credited with “inflating drums” (STOP PRESS: the just-received explanation reads "Cremer inflated his snare and toms with the help of a hose by blowing air with his mouth that changed the pitch of the drums while beating them"). While the dialogues between the not-yet-Mr.23 with, respectively, Cremer and Herrman describe a sharp journeying around the possibilities of two-part counterpoint without devastating apogees or reprehensible utilizations of formulas, the cream lies within three marvellous expressions by the Harth/Nicole Van Den Plas duo, correspondingly titled “Call & Suspense”, “Durus” and “Reverserenity”, the latter characterized, as per the title’s hint, by sonorities based on reverse-tape techniques utilized with extreme soberness. The saxophonist - who in this case plays bass clarinet, violin, harmonica and other objects - and his (at that time) life partner, also vocalizing in semi-ritual fashion, share a noticeable confident comprehension, demonstrating a deeper degree of intuitive intimacy which is usually the crucial factor for intense revelations in improvisational ambits. The disc is concluded by a trait-d’union recording – “near the end of Just Music & ahead of the group E.M.T.” in A23H’s words – of the quartet formed by Harth, Van Den Plas, her brother Jean Van Den Plas (bass) and Paul Lovens (drums), which in a way symbolizes the transformation of ideals and, especially, the ever-shifting intellectual qualities of a man whose artistic aims were probably too high in relation to a proverbial modesty, as hundreds of imitators found a quick ascent to fame and fortune given their exactly opposite attitude (“let’s steal, then we’ll see”). But time, someone says, is a gentleman, and properly schooled ears are going to do the rest for a complete recognition of “who came first”.
ENSEMBLES
A few additional soldiers join the squad. Harth and friends are flanked in a couple of instances by other free-thinkers, responding to the names of Witold Teplitz (clarinet), Hans Schwindt (alto sax), Thomas Stoewsand (cello) and Andre De Tiege (viola). Ensembles is probably the record in which the ratio between the modernity of the overall sound and the old age of the tapes is in every respect astonishing. A set like the one recorded on September 13, 1968 at the Liederhalle, Mozartsaal in Stuttgart could easily have been composed (on the spot, naturally!) and released today without almost anyone noticing that 1) the players are out-and-out teenagers and 2) the music comes from the post-Palaeozoic era of collective perspicuity, Harth allegedly unaware of entities such as AMM or SME which were evidently navigating contiguous seas. What we need to stress yet again is the impressive up-building of the interplay, which often start from veritable compositional illuminations in turn giving life to earnestness-driven hypotheses for a new contrapuntal design, without the necessity of recurring to tricks or, even worse, reducing the whole to unwarranted noise. In reality, what immediately strikes the ears is the non-difficult digestibility of this material: despite the lack of a commonly intended “theme” or some “melody” to be caught from, and the fact that nonconformity can be detected nearly everywhere, that classic sense of fulfilment deriving from the fine-tuning of dissonance resolving in catharsis permeates the air every time we stop and concentrate a tad more on the wholesome allure of these sounds. The conclusive two parts of “Radio Live Concert In Prague” might be considered among of the most evocative moments this reviewer has experienced in hundreds of hours of A23H-typified expressions, an exquisite meshing of controlled apprehension and cultivated aggrandisement of minuscule mechanisms, sustaining the weight of a prolonged duration to reveal a world of correspondences and interrelationships one would gladly like to acknowledge as “ideal”. An inspiring ending for this marvellous triptych, chock full of secluded beauties finally revealed to worthy audiences. If many people had conveniently “forgotten” to attribute the deserved place in the history of contemporary improvisation to Alfred Harth’s conceptions and ideas, now blind shades and earplugs must be thrown away once and for all. This music should be studied.
2009 is a fundamental moment in Alfred Harth’s life, in that he celebrates both the 60th birthday (on September 28th) and a 40-year career’s “jubilee”. We already talked about Just Music, one of the first improvisation ensembles recorded on ECM, whose activities were tragically under-documented to date. Luckily, Harth is retrieving additional material from the archives, these three records constituting as a good introduction as any to the collective’s stimulating methods. All of this great stuff is now available from the instigator himself through the Laubhuette imprint, and it comes without saying that you’d better start to be more aware of the roots of instrumental ad-libbing as opposed to having some “prophet of silence” dry your wallet with a hour of coughs, creaks and outside motorbikes surrounding two single “pings” and a “whirr”.
TRIOS
Extraordinarily good-sounding, given that the recordings occurred in March 1970, the tracks contained by this disc - strangely enough - do not feature Harth but present a selection of improvisations by two dissimilar trios. In the first, Michael Sell (trumpet), Franz Volhard (bass) and Thomas Cremer (drums) show that brief disquisitions can yield excellent results. Sell is obviously a protagonist, his phrasing voluble without preponderance, a constant melodic resourcefulness at the basis of an invigorating cross of swiftness and concomitance in admirable interaction with the “fractured rhythm” section. If this piece has a defect, that should be its shortness. We’re soon rewarded by a superb “clean” set comprising again Volhard (this time on cello), Johannes Krämer (acoustic guitar) and Peter Stock (bass). This lengthier series is the ideal evidence of the sensitiveness-informed technical eminence of the musicians, who interact alternating exhilaration and open-mindedness during exchanges that range from sheer ebullience to classically-scented, chamber-like reflective interpretations of self-determination. Even within the same trio, the inherent subdivisions (practically, duos in three different combinations) reveal an “adult” approach to mutual give-and-take informed by a taste for first-rate tones which stamps this collection with a “not-to-be-missed” seal.
GROUPS & DUOS
Just listening to the radiophonic excerpt which opens the CD, recorded at Hessischer Rundfunk in 1968 and featuring snippets of interview (in German) with a 18-year old Harth - who sounds like a well-trained host in answering the real host’s questions - is enough to make one instantly curious. Yet it is once again the incredible maturity of the music presented, intelligently sequenced in the subsequent tracks, which must be taken into account to establish the absolute importance of these archival materials. These pieces – fantastic how the typical background hum contributes to the fascination during the playback – appear as a cross-pollination of atonal thematic jazz and instant-reaction heterodoxy - without excess of transcendental euphoria - in perennial recusant enlightenment. The chief initiator, on tenor sax, is flanked by Dieter Herrman on trombone, besides the usual suspects Krämer (guitar), Volhard (cello), Stock (bass) and Cremer, here puzzlingly credited with “inflating drums” (STOP PRESS: the just-received explanation reads "Cremer inflated his snare and toms with the help of a hose by blowing air with his mouth that changed the pitch of the drums while beating them"). While the dialogues between the not-yet-Mr.23 with, respectively, Cremer and Herrman describe a sharp journeying around the possibilities of two-part counterpoint without devastating apogees or reprehensible utilizations of formulas, the cream lies within three marvellous expressions by the Harth/Nicole Van Den Plas duo, correspondingly titled “Call & Suspense”, “Durus” and “Reverserenity”, the latter characterized, as per the title’s hint, by sonorities based on reverse-tape techniques utilized with extreme soberness. The saxophonist - who in this case plays bass clarinet, violin, harmonica and other objects - and his (at that time) life partner, also vocalizing in semi-ritual fashion, share a noticeable confident comprehension, demonstrating a deeper degree of intuitive intimacy which is usually the crucial factor for intense revelations in improvisational ambits. The disc is concluded by a trait-d’union recording – “near the end of Just Music & ahead of the group E.M.T.” in A23H’s words – of the quartet formed by Harth, Van Den Plas, her brother Jean Van Den Plas (bass) and Paul Lovens (drums), which in a way symbolizes the transformation of ideals and, especially, the ever-shifting intellectual qualities of a man whose artistic aims were probably too high in relation to a proverbial modesty, as hundreds of imitators found a quick ascent to fame and fortune given their exactly opposite attitude (“let’s steal, then we’ll see”). But time, someone says, is a gentleman, and properly schooled ears are going to do the rest for a complete recognition of “who came first”.
ENSEMBLES
A few additional soldiers join the squad. Harth and friends are flanked in a couple of instances by other free-thinkers, responding to the names of Witold Teplitz (clarinet), Hans Schwindt (alto sax), Thomas Stoewsand (cello) and Andre De Tiege (viola). Ensembles is probably the record in which the ratio between the modernity of the overall sound and the old age of the tapes is in every respect astonishing. A set like the one recorded on September 13, 1968 at the Liederhalle, Mozartsaal in Stuttgart could easily have been composed (on the spot, naturally!) and released today without almost anyone noticing that 1) the players are out-and-out teenagers and 2) the music comes from the post-Palaeozoic era of collective perspicuity, Harth allegedly unaware of entities such as AMM or SME which were evidently navigating contiguous seas. What we need to stress yet again is the impressive up-building of the interplay, which often start from veritable compositional illuminations in turn giving life to earnestness-driven hypotheses for a new contrapuntal design, without the necessity of recurring to tricks or, even worse, reducing the whole to unwarranted noise. In reality, what immediately strikes the ears is the non-difficult digestibility of this material: despite the lack of a commonly intended “theme” or some “melody” to be caught from, and the fact that nonconformity can be detected nearly everywhere, that classic sense of fulfilment deriving from the fine-tuning of dissonance resolving in catharsis permeates the air every time we stop and concentrate a tad more on the wholesome allure of these sounds. The conclusive two parts of “Radio Live Concert In Prague” might be considered among of the most evocative moments this reviewer has experienced in hundreds of hours of A23H-typified expressions, an exquisite meshing of controlled apprehension and cultivated aggrandisement of minuscule mechanisms, sustaining the weight of a prolonged duration to reveal a world of correspondences and interrelationships one would gladly like to acknowledge as “ideal”. An inspiring ending for this marvellous triptych, chock full of secluded beauties finally revealed to worthy audiences. If many people had conveniently “forgotten” to attribute the deserved place in the history of contemporary improvisation to Alfred Harth’s conceptions and ideas, now blind shades and earplugs must be thrown away once and for all. This music should be studied.
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