Memories Of Mr. 23 (The Alfred Harth Chronicles)

ALFRED 23 HARTH - @ Blankies End + @ Eighties End

Laubhuette Studio

Described by its inventor as “another kind of looking back into the last decade”, @ Blankies End is one of the best records that Alfred 23 Harth has released in that period. By analyzing the titles, a forward counting towards 2012 can be detected while observing the recent past. In classically puzzling style, and open to any interpretation by the reader, Harth writes that “…being conscious about every moment we count & live in linearity (…) means a moment within a future moment (2012 is here & now & yesterday)”. The album’s content is both arcane and stimulating; repeated scrutiny is a must. “Ten Tin” contains materials that seem to mix human snoring, chanting monks and bubbling hisses in a conduit, the pace defined by a sort of electrostatic rhythm upon which the clarinet sings with unusual peacefulness, if just temporarily. It’s an inexplicably meditative vision, sounding a little scary at the same time, the grunting tone of Harth’s voice disloyal to the mental image I treasure of him as a timidly smiling gentleman. “Elf” (“eleven”) utilizes distortion in large doses, mashing and mangling snippets of concrete and instrumental substance in homage to the blasphemy of extreme dissonance. The toothsomely vicious results are to be savoured in the restaurant where the finest electroacoustic recipes are served. “Gesternmorgen” is an abstraction: an amassment of simple melodies clashing in adjacency, hyper-acrid reed perspirations, corrosion of heterogeneously alien harmonies and a pinch of disaffection for the cruel world of ordinary music. At the very beginning, “Popol Vuh” might evoke Jon Hassell (the pulse, the nearly tribal atmosphere). The differences become obvious when Harth starts superimposing the different reeds; meanwhile, the background gradually transforms the better intentions in an intimidating mutation of a religious chant, halfway through a sacrificial invocation and the complete disconnection from corporeality. The whole unfolds across undecipherable utterances and other assorted subliminal persuasions. “Twentyhundredtwelve” (namely 2012 or 20+1+2, as the composer would have it) features Choi Sun Bae’s trumpet in a ominous hint to the “enigmatic” year which will define once and for all if those famous prophecies are legitimate or not (curiously, December 21 – the presumed ending date – is also Frank Zappa’s birthday). Again, the voice is a fundamental ingredient of the track, which grows on the listener memorably amidst drones, squeals, gurgles, vociferous solos and warped lamentations, a remarkable episode in Harth’s recorded output. “Back Lantern” explores the fringes of the frequency region with a quick wink to the sweet cheapness of certain synthetic patches from two decades earlier (more on that later); nonetheless, the underlying extraterrestrial mantras and ebbing-and-flowing glottolalia are what actually corresponds to its actual muscle, highlighting a type of spiritual quest that sees the fear of the unknown as a regular incidence in an advanced being’s daily reflection. If someone had taught me to pray like this as a young child, I’d still be there at the church. “Der Schlaf Ist Eine Süsse Melodie” ends the set in typical A23H fashion, and I’m not going to reveal the secret. Go to the artist’s website and ask for a copy of this CDR pronto.

On a first listen, the connection between the above milestone and @ Eighties End doesn’t appear so easy (nothing is when this artist is involved). For starters, both recordings were realized at the closing stages of a decade (2009 the former, 1989 this). Then, a somewhat melancholic clarinet characterizes big chunks of the music(s) quite profoundly. Yet the reason behind Harth’s choice of retrieving this work from the archives is the perception of a reborn interest for some of the sounds in vogue in the 80s, with particular reference to notable presets (which, sure enough, this record comprises). The collection includes segments from a pair of diverse soundtracks: Antigone, a theatre piece played at Düsseldorf’s Schauspielhaus of which Mr. 23 was the musical director at the time, and Lachen, Weinen, Lieben, a film then broadcasted by ZDF. If the theatre act calls for something dramatically relating performers and listeners – for example, “Antigone.Nacht” offers exactly that in a progression of atmospheres at times reminiscent of Thierry Zaboitzeff – the soundtrack for the television feature shows a new facet of this multi-talented man, who manages to achieve credibility in that difficult field despite the intermittent use of timbres that everybody knows inside and out (…mainly from Korg workstations: lots of musicians, including yours truly, fell prey of those pads in that epoch) but, in his hands, are meshed and delivered with such subtleness that they often result as adequate, even to this day. The beauty of a sound always depends on the context and, especially, on the person who exploits it. In that sense, Harth is invulnerable: the control on the mechanisms and the correct sequencing of the sonic occurrences remains inflexible, the concepts are expressed without excess of discursiveness (which would contradict the music’s designed role in this circumstance). Ultimately, this is a slight detour from the renowned capriciousness of the German’s acoustic craft that permits a partial relief interspersed with a modicum of weirdness (as it happens in “Antigone.Ölfässer”, the general sonority enhanced by the actors via enormous oil cans in a peculiar Mad Max-like scenario).

A Spirale – Agaspastik

Another CD released in 2008. This Neapolitan trio is composed by Mario Gabola (feedbacks and acoustic sax), Maurizio Argenziano (feedbacks and electric guitar) and Massimo Spezzaferro (drums and little things). The press release quotes Kevin Drumm and Bhob Raney as imaginary point of reference, but what materialized in my mind instead is the centre of a triangle whose corners are occupied by John Zorn, Zu and Curlew (the latter only in regard to some of Gabola’s bony phrases on the saxophone). Hold your horses: I’m not saying that we’re at the same technical and creative level of the above mentioned entities. In spite of this, there’s a freshness, a genuine will of having fun while playing - without posturing - that is rarely met when Italians are involved. Usually, in similar circumstances I notice a lot of “avant-pretentiousness” on these shores: become friend with/kiss the ass of someone important in a certain situation and you’ll be able to get all kind of undeserved accolades and “the-music-sucks-but-it’s-positive-anyway” reviews, even if you ain’t worth a shit (hey, let’s keep the promos comin’, folks). Fortunately, this does not apply to A Spirale, who attack the listener with serious ferocity, hammering the brain with obliquely “wrong” riffs, superimpositions of dirty upper partials, pre-explosion quietness, clamorous outbursts of semi-regular clangour defined by acrid miasmas and convulsively anti-pattern drumming. This writer thinks it is enough, at least for today. (Fratto9 Under The Sky)

The Peggy Lee Band – New Code

New Code (2008) is the fourth outing by an octet (previously a sextet, subsequently expanded) led by cellist and composer Lee, a woman active in various artistic settings in the Vancouver area who has collaborated – among others – with Wayne Horvitz, Dave Douglas, Nels Cline and Bill Frisell. The latter’s influence is evident in the guitar arrangements (the axemen being Ron Samworth and Tony Wilson), soothingly wavering arpeggios informing compositional milieus that don’t allow the musicians to stray too much from the main harmonic establishment, more than ever in the pair of covers that open and close the CD (by Bob Dylan and Kurt Weill respectively). Three horn-blowing men – trumpeter Brad Turner, saxophonist Jon Bentley and trombonist Jeremy Berkman – execute clean-and-tidy designs amidst which the leader’s cello often seems to hide instead of fighting or moving at the forefront, which is a bit of a trademark in a way. Bassist André Lachance and drummer Dylan Van Der Schyff complete the line-up. I’ll be brutally honest: this is not an extraordinary album, overly meek as it is even in its improvisational traits. It is played well of course - but with a perennial smile on the face, not biting for a second. “Overeducated” is perhaps the best adjective to use in this case. Every now and then we need a little sting in between the cuteness, and it never happens. And you know what, a piano replacing the guitars in the orchestration would have worked better. All things considered, this music can work as a pleasant complement to quietness; sometimes this is just what’s required from a record. Sometimes. (Drip Audio)

Dave Stone - Solo

Born in 1971, Dave Stone grew up as a multi instrumentalist but as an improviser has specialized in reeds, sharing experiences with several central figures of the St. Louis jazz scene (all of them quite mysterious to the author, who doesn’t miss a chance to prove his enduring lack of knowledge despite four abundant decades of swallowed recordings). In the fourteen episodes of Solo (2008) the protagonist showcases irrefutable talent and innate musicality through an array of saxophones and clarinets, occasionally naming the pieces with incomprehensible words (“Dundtor”, “Ackakaplakakpla”, “Belelelell”) that I instantly fell in love with. If you manage to last the whole of the album’s duration – not easy for a ham-fisted listener at over 68 minutes – the repayment comes under the shape of serious virtuosity characterized by legitimate intelligence. Stone chooses the right technique to explore every time, knows the value of silence and space between clean notes, convulsive spurts and unkind upper partials, unafraid of showing that he can play the damn instruments, not hiding behind pensive postures and false humility (the latter “qualities” always useful for getting profiles on major magazines). In some of the improvisations we were tempted to associate the playing to certain pages from Anthony Braxton’s book, but this may just be a silly flight of the imagination. The core of the matter is that this is great self-propelling music requiring patience and attention, exposing the artistic sheen of a man who wants people to really understand what he means, translating intentions into a rewarding physicality distinguished by a near-flawless command of the instrumental dynamics. (Freedonia)

Blechmann & Murayama, Andrea Polli, Son Of Rose

TIM BLECHMANN / SEIJIRO MURAYAMA - 347

Recorded in Paris at La Comète 347, this CD presents an episode of the activities of Blechmann and Murayama intent in capturing different types of resonance in a large room, aiding themselves by various boxes of speakers and a snare drum. This is a classic case of document that exists just as a testimony of a live event, for getting tangible aural satisfaction from these successions of charged silences, diminutive noises and percussive patterns at home is not warranted (unless you’re a member of the “anything goes” reductionist party). What I did welcome instead was the hushed echo of the urban and inside environment caught by the microphones (including the alarm of an ambulance that, at one point, keeps company for a while until it dies – the alarm, not the transported person, hopefully). Nothing much to say in addition, except that we’re convinced by the seriousness of the intentions, but not overly enthusiastic due to the scarce depth of the acoustic messages. (Nonvisualobjects)

ANDREA POLLI – Sonic Antarctica

Quoting from her website's biographic notes, Polli - a woman gifted with an impressive curriculum vitae, go check yourselves - "works in collaboration with atmospheric scientists to develop systems for understanding storms and climate through sound (called sonification)". Therefore, it doesn't come as a surprise that this is another audible documentary, though quite different from what I had expected having read the title. In fact, the large part of this disc is taken by the above mentioned scientists speaking about lots of things (all of them related to the central theme, of course) and the inner reasons for what they do (moral obligations, role of the scientist versus the community, you get the picture). The verbal material is mainly interspersed by the continuous irregular pulse of the electronic signals that come from various weather stations placed in the explored areas, and – very infrequently – other types of sound such as walking on a glacier, the inside of helicopters in flight, radios and even a short snippet featuring penguins. Therefore be warned: this is more a spoken record than a collection of Antarctic sounds. An interesting listen from an intellectual point of view; a little less in terms of power of evocation elicited by field recordings. But, ultimately, it’s indubitably a sincerely purposed mission. (Gruenrekorder)

SON OF ROSE - All In

Iranian Kamran Sadeghi – aka Son Of Rose – utilizes the voice of a piano, an eBow and drums whose primary components get heavily processed during a live interaction with electronics. His interest lies in finding a way to render the timbral traits of popular instruments unrecognizable, which he achieves quite successfully. The problem might lie in the almost complete nonattendance of a compositional temperament, which – despite the solemn dignity of certain extended reverberations and the interest generated by accumulations of self-harmonizing hybridized tones – is felt as a slight impediment after a while, rendering All In more a gathering of simple experiments and ideas than a fully fledged inventive creation. This notwithstanding, some of the pieces are clearly the fruit of an attentive work of deconstruction, and the title track features the kind of impressively luminescent drones that will cause many aficionados to perk their ears. However, we’re not talking about “can’t miss” stuff. (Blanket Fields)

Lucio Capece / Sergio Merce – Casa

At last I managed to listen to a CD that was floating on my desk since ages ago; shame on me, as always. At any rate, “casa” means “house” in Spanish (and Italian, too). The title comes from the recording place: you guessed right, at Sergio Merce’s home in Merlo, Argentina. The pair has been playing together since 1993, originally in very different contexts (baroque polyphony, anyone?); the duo as a separate entity started in 2002. Two tracks are presented: the first and longest one “Virar, Virar”, was realized through a sruti box (in essence, a harmonium), a filter and a tapeless Portastudio, played by Merce via small metallic objects manipulated in the recorder’s head area. It’s basically a drone piece with various gradations of engaged frequencies, sparse interruptions of the fundamental accumulation leaving a few moments to the mind to be relieved a little bit, lots of under-skin activities sounding like controlled feedback and random impulses. Impressive in parts, sporadically nearing Niblockian atmospheres. In any case, a serious approach which needs to be carefully examined: headphones are necessary to become conscious of what happens (also in the rear of the mix) whereas, by listening across a room, all we get is a series of wheezing slabs that oscillate and move, but ultimately result less striking. “Vieja Casa Nueva” is a duet for bass clarinet and tenor sax, much in the vein of low-frequency exploitation in regions bordering with onkyo. Parallel blowing, synchronized pauses, breath again, new matching whispered currents that buzz and throb. It goes on for about eight minutes, and it is nice to hear – although the former track is clearly more developed. (Organized Music From Thessaloniki)

Jesse Stacken, Monroe Golden, Yannick Dauby

JESSE STACKEN – Magnolia

Jesse Stacken is a member of the Peter Van Huffel Quartet, and that’s how I first came across his playing. This album – which features bassist Eivind Opsvik and drummer Jeff Davis - reveals him as a versatile, sensible pianist and composer per se, whose interests reside halfway through the exploration of wider spaces for notes and, especially, overtones to resound (the meditative opening "Solstice", or the introvert "Time Canvas") and more dissonant and metrically charged passages (the title track and certain sections of "Crow Leaf Frog"). In "The Whip" we were reminded of Vince Guaraldi's pianism and overall scents: those of you who are well acquainted with Charlie Brown's cartoons will immediately understand. Stacken shows a thoughtful, considerate attitude when he’s following a contemplative vein: the interaction between his spare shapes and Opsvik's frail arco in "Aquatic House" is daintily sustained by Davis' whispered gestures on the drum set. And yet the program is closed by a tune - "Face" - branded by the appearance of power chords, no less. This clever concomitance of diverse aspects of the same artistic personality is what ultimately renders the record satisfying. (Fresh Sound New Talent)

MONROE GOLDEN - Alabama Places

For this reporter, Monroe Golden is a new name and a pleasing encounter. He is interested in the concurrence of commonly tuned and detuned sources, ears open towards phenomena linked to microtones. Alabama Places – his second CD - consists of 73 minutes of rather minimalist vignettes and rhythmic studies executed by Ellen Tweiten (piano) and Kurt Carpenter (microtonal keyboard) with accuracy and genuine interest for the material. To have a vague idea of how this stuff sounds, visualize a semi-synthetic crossbreeding of Moondog and Charlemagne Palestine without the mesmerizing auras generated by the latter's lingering harmonics. The compositions tend to a compact kind of mechanical repetitiveness - slightly modified by frequent, if minor variations in accents - distinguished by a mild melodious angularity. It is quite interesting at times, despite the low-cost nature of some of the presets used; indeed, fake harpsichords, harps and clarinets don't do justice to our aspiration of listening to authentic instruments, occasionally lowering the music's credibility a couple of notches. But, regardless of a slight degree of weariness caused by the methodical immutability after a hour or so, the experiments are legitimately appealing. By mentally fusing these somewhat misshapen visions with the composer's track-by-track description of each piece’s background, one becomes intrigued enough to repeat the playback, searching again for the elusive combinations of overtones that had engendered a positive reaction in the first place. Ultimately, the virtues of a gentle eccentricity prevail on the absence of deviations from the main road. (Innova)

YANNICK DAUBY – Overflows

Dauby lives in Taiwan, though he’s a French native. In his current homeland and in Saint Nazaire he gathered – upon commission of two different festivals – the materials for this excellent album of field recordings, whose sources were captured in 2005 and 2006 respectively. The listener individuates a strong connection with the material almost instantly and follows it throughout 44-plus minutes; Dauby chose elements that are reasonably recognizable – industrial noises, environmental glimpses, majestic wind – and assembled them with a sense of musicality that’s rarely found in other release in this area. The title seems to allude to the fact that the scenarios stream one into another: the clatter in a large room is gradually replaced by heavy rain, the engines of passing vehicles and the voices in a crowd introduce crickets and cicadas, and so on. Steadily, but also poetically in a way, the composer puts us in the driver’s seat of a splendid trip through the kind of acoustic consciousness that should constitute the primary constituent of our life, and a reason for being happy just to exist as a tiny part of this world. Too bad that many people will call these human emanations “sheer noise”; it’s not their fault. The finale is a breathtakingly beautiful surprise, which I’ll leave you to discover. (Sonoris)

Three From Graham Stewart's VioSac

Known two decades ago as Violence And The Sacred (I still have one of the early LPs, Suture Self - this writer is getting old, you see) VioSac is basically Graham Stewart, from Ontario, who transform into (not always) wacky sounds the many suggestions that buzz in his mind, with just a little help from friends in some occasions. An old-tech type of acousmatic pastry – resolutely recorded on analogue tape – which reveals a number of very nice surprises. These three CDs represent the result of the project’s second coming after several years of hiatus; they were published yearly – starting in 2008 - and are reviewed according to their chronologic order. Hey you, people who spent a fortune for NWW’s Chance Meeting On A Dissecting Table: there’s more attractive substance herein.

VIOSAC – Rusty Pile

Instigation to obsessive behaviours through the use of a neurotic variety of dissonant sequencing (brought to extreme consequences in the exaggeratedly protracted title track). Elsewhere, intriguing reiterations and leisurely paced abstract electronics pave the way to an easier enjoyment of an ill-minded quietness, the impossibility of referencing the sounds to anything well-known a definite plus. Samples of classic music appear like funny ghosts amidst panoramas overflowed with deformed dichotomies and rambling precariousness. Spoken word (texts by a William Shakespeare) is not exactly welcome, especially when it ruins a beautifully misshapen string loop (“Sonnet 139/66”) or unspeakably nonfigurative suspensions (“Sonnet 64/15”). This is uncompromisingly disordered stuff: at times naïve, often labyrinthine, for the large part appreciably unendurable due to a reluctance to open the doors to a “first come, first served” kind of short-term audience. On the contrary, Rusty Pile must be attentively analyzed in order to appreciate its most satisfying traits, which translates into “legitimate experimental release”.

VIOSAC – You Are Planning To Enjoy The Apocalypse

The record was mainly composed on Korg analogue synthesizers plus “processed audio from primary source material and field/found recordings”. Besides the boss, it features the participation of other human entities in a couple of instances (Ted Wheeler and a “St. Deborah”). This time the title track - also the longest, once again - is placed right at the beginning but its compulsiveness is rendered more acceptable by the volatility of the sequences, and the nineteen minutes flow pretty easily. The rest is a mixture of relentless aural vexations and cerebral bewilderment permeated by sonorities that are best described as “deliriously cluttered”. One manages to get a vague impression of a few familiar elements: deformed voices, guitars equalized as if played inside a stomach. The recalcitrant temperament of some of these digressions – at times enhanced by industrial percussions who would test Job’s patience - is not exactly what will persuade a loved person to remain faithful. However, this constant rupture of any scheme that might remotely be associated with consonance and mental respite is entertaining. Quite often, this music is so absurdly unhinged that ends sounding like a sticky magma of cacophonic emissions of which we can just imagine the underlying plot. Fact is, this kind of matter has always interested yours truly and Stewart is not an adolescent foot-dragger.

VIOSAC – Dawning Luminosity

And so, when everything looked set for my third attempt to find strange words to depict another eerie recipe by Stewart, we’re instead welcomed by a brand of semi-static loop-based electronica whose overall sonority lies halfway through a depressurized Eliane Radigue and the above mentioned NWW circa Soliloquy For Lilith, with wider spaces for the mind to roam. There’s nothing much to report about in the unfolding of this work, which is subdivided in three parts and thus designed: “Music of sadness and resolution”. Let’s just say that it is a soothing kind of discreetly enigmatic ethereal soundscape with deeper implications than sheer “ambient”, definitely capable of involving the listener beyond its use as background (which is one of the options, although the sonic tissue implies something more interesting, being formed by a multiple layering-cum-modulation of Moog and Korg synths processed via Vermona and Roland effects). The features I love most are the slowly sloping waves and the warm pulsations generated by those machines, which – taken in the opportune moment – can connect with the mental dimension where rational justifications of psychoacoustic phenomena are not mandatory. We let the sounds do the talking, and they talk convincingly. As Stewart puts it, “understand, and you’re liberated”.

VioSac

Humi – Dune

Humi was a duo formed by the late Hugh Hopper (bass, loops and electronics) and Yumi Hara Cawkwell (voice, keyboards and percussion). Concerning the latter, I remember having detested her vocalizations in another release on this imprint - Upstream with Geoff Leigh – so the nastiest thoughts were starting to materialize in my mind. Luckily, though Dune – released in 2008 - didn’t really manage to stir me up, it is in any case much better than that. This is due to its relative weirdness, explicated via a difficult-to-classify kind of improvisation that sees the protagonists meshing jazzy echoes (especially in regard to Cawkwell pianism), the trademark touch of Hopper on his beloved instrument, and bizarre concatenations of abstract noises, superimposed repetitions by means of a digital delay, backward tape-like effects, ritual chant – still rather unacknowledged here – and, particularly in the record’s second half, absurd “tunes” drenched with retro features (a vocoder???) and electronic sounds that are both amusing and tacky, a sort of soundtrack to a third-level horror movie. Yet one is attracted by the perverted charm of some of these eccentric tracks, unremarkable but at the same time endowed with a trait of uniqueness. At the end of the day, it all amounts to an interesting enough record, an oddity worthy of being heard. (Moonjune)

Terje Paulsen – Three Strings – 3s Second

Norwegian Paulsen set himself out to restore some dignity to a pair of ancient instruments lying around the house, whose strings were about 30 years old. He applied contact microphones and a minimum of effects to the aged boxes, utilizing fingers, bows and eBow plus minor preparations such as wooden sticks to elicit nicely resonant harmonics, a few gentle noises and even drones of the breathtaking variety, like it happens in the second movement. It's an unpretentious, beautiful recording in its nudity, way better than the music released by the same artist on Mystery Sea's Horisont. Three Strings is subdued, articulate or nebulous depending on what’s necessary at a particular moment - and definitely more genuine. Propagations of life from objects destined to an undeserved euthanasia, evacuation of worthless appendages in favour of a welcome substance. This somewhat enigmatic management of instrumental decrepitness warrants several moments of serious absorption bathed in mucillaginous stupor. Very good stuff. (Et Le Feu Comme)

Bruce Gilbert – This Way

OK, so Bruce Gilbert is a pretty illustrious name – Dome, Wire, etc. Too bad that, after the partial delusion generated in yours truly by the more recent Oblivio Agitatum (same label), I still can’t validate the raison d'être of such a consideration by listening to This Way, an album originally released in 1984 and defined “a stunning study of controlled ambience and subtle minimalism” by the press release. Pardon me? Apart from the graceful female vocal loop informing the first track, the bulk of this record is mechanically repetitive in rather annoying fashion for these ears, without relevant artistic logic if not for very short flashes. Perhaps, associated to the choreographies to which some of it constitutes the soundtrack, it could make sense (and it’s a big “perhaps”). But in terms of sheer musical value this is just scarcely significant drapery, interspersed with badly aged samples and typified by virtually inexistent compositional insight. And we’re not sure that our judgment would have much different 26 years ago. Highlighting an artist at any cost only because of right connections is something I’ve always detested, and this – in conjunction with the aforementioned CD - looks like an archetypal case of hype prevailing on effective substance. (Editions Mego)

Basta!, Aranis

BASTA! - Cycles

The idea of Belgian Joris Vanvinckenroye – composing scores for solo double bass, superimposing the parts and utilizing the instrument’s traits to form lines, counterpoints and a rhythm section all alone – is good enough. The problem is that, even with a skilled performer behind it, Cycles is too harmonically light to be considered worthy of belonging in the elite – nor in the secondary rank - of the music we deal with on these shores; it may be a compilation of tuneful sketches or refined demos, but is not felt as a set of fully flourished pieces by this writer. The occasional flash of interest is soon replaced by the ascertainment of the insufficient density of the compositional matter, and – at the end of the day – listening to undemanding melodies, nicely executed in contrapuntal cuteness, is not what I’m looking for these days.

ARANIS - Songs From Mirage

Although still not considerable as a chef d’oeuvre, Songs From Mirage is a step forward by Vanvinckenroye, who in this case orchestrates for a chamber ensemble including two violins, accordion, piano, double bass, guitar and flute, plus a female vocal trio. Take the most digestible ingredients of Thierry Zaboitzeff, Julverne, late Philip Glass, Wolfgang Salomon (has anybody heard Luna – Small Steps For Mankind?) and shake them within accessible harmonic contexts spiced with a tad of Medieval and East European reverberations; organize the recipe for musicians who show positive adroitness and a degree of passion in the performance, and you’ll be partially acquainted with what these materials sound like. As a bonus, Aranis introduce a little dissonance here and there to make things moderately interesting. My advice is enjoying the disc via speakers at moderate volume: the way in which the whole evolves thanks to the chosen instrumentation lets the acoustic scent spread charmingly, sporadically rendering it more precious than it really is. (Homerecords)

Fergus Kelly - Swarf + Fugitive Pitch

Swarf is a three-inch CD containing 20 minutes composed by gathering gentle noises emitted via bowed steel rods with sheet steel resonator, edited in consecutive loops and logical sequences in order to let them appear like veritable pieces of music. Obviously comparable to an acoustic sculpture or an installation – think a cross of a sedated Organum and a shut-in-a-closet version of Jonathan Coleclough – characterized by a sort of imprecise lyricism made acceptable by the short duration of the five tracks, each giving a different interpretation of the basic concept. Not really harsh, but also not excessively placid; minimalist in a way. Small doses of aural satisfaction are in any case guaranteed. A sufficiently grown-up release in this busy area.

Fugitive Pitch utilizes a longer period to better develop the notion, this time showing the consequence of improvisations (by Kelly and David Lacey) with metals, plastic and drum parts in cellars located under Dublin’s Henrietta Street. The raw materials were processed and seamed after being recorded, thus maintaining the structural coherence that had already been detected in the shorter disc. Needless to say, the level of gratification is increased by the larger resonance deriving from the setting in which this was realized; still, although the record is not lacking in fascinating roars and rumbles – with an even more attentive ear to the enhancement of long-drawn-out upper partials - not too much of truly groundbreaking can be reported. There’s no doubt about Kelly’s seriousness of intents though, his sound world definitely able to sustain our curiosity for the whole extent of the program and, at the very least, constituting a pleasant soundtrack for this early morning. (Room Temperature)