Helena Gough’s sound art makes you feel in need of a password in order to access her world, and it’s not a given that you’ll be able to identify with what’s really meant in there. The previous With What Remains (same label) had been a fantastic debut, certainly not easy to duplicate. Now Mikroklimata – recorded at the artist’s home in Berlin – throws another set of problems altogether in our face, last but not least the eternal question dealing with the inadequateness of words as opposed to the enormous variety of timbres, nuances and codes that an open-minded composer – Gough surely is – is capable of bringing out from the circuits of a laptop. What she creates is both difficult to pin down and absolutely remunerative in psychophysical terms.
Various planes of spectral gradations intersect in total absence of commonly intended tonality, the fluid structures characterized by recurrent malformations, gaseous multiplications and immersive pulse. Disseminations of pseudo-cybernetic mechanisms (the title of the first track “Tephra” sounds like a homage to Roland Kayn) are followed by the gurgle of deteriorating liquids running within curled conduits which, at the end of their length, reveal points of blinding light that come unexpected yet constitute a reassuring vision. Frequencies that seem to lay dormant suddenly produce luxuriously puzzling reticulations that guide the brain through the understanding process instead of displacing the few familiar elements to kick your concentration’s ass.
A specimen of modern computer music which is not going to give anything away for small change, this CD needs plenty of focus and the methodical ejection of preconceptions from a listener’s insides, but will reward proportionally. Second ace by this silence-loving girl who breaks that very quietness via idiosyncratic messages stuffed with digitalized biotic dichotomies.
MASSIMO RICCI. TOUCHING EXTREMES. 