Coti K: contrabass; Ilios: oscillators; Nikos Veliotis: cello
Certain projects appear to be born in heaven, or at least to perfectly fit in this writer’s private cloud nine. Mohammad is one of them: string music entirely revolving around the lower frequencies of the audible spectrum substantiated by electronically engendered substances, moving across the room – and our awareness – with authority and poise at once. Drones that stay put for a while, then suddenly turn left or right inside a glissando-generated dull pain. An inexpressible force, often equaling the sensation of abrupt shock transmitted by the stomach when we drop ourselves from a high place without anticipating the consequences; think of a plunge from a huge rock into the sea’s water when the sky threatens heavy rain.
Som Sakrifis is a vinyl release that lasts about 32 minutes. Short, yes, but as they say in the trade it’s better saying few significant things that overwhelming the listener with a mass of useless bullshit. Gorgeousness lies practically everywhere in each of the three pieces, completely constructed on subsonic massiveness augmented by the players’ acute sensibility in realizing when an instant is propitious to steer towards a new grouping of pitches. It’s there, in this continuous up and down within the territory of the giant buzzing hum, that the trio’s acoustic dignity is expressed in all its prominence. The longest track “Liberig Min” uses as a metronome of sorts the tweet of a marshland bird; coincidentally, the same sound that used to enlighten my nights during peaceful summer periods that are not going to come back.
As I’m grievingly remembering those states of grace, Coti K, Ilios and Veliotis’ ill-omened shades remind me that today’s world is uglier. Still, if you can get yourselves to be permeated by their plangent influence, a continued existence devoid of pointless thinking and vacuous intellectualization of too-deep-to-explain issues – only strengthened by the sheer magnificence of this type of music – might become an inestimable means for acquiring a dose of much desirable mental placation. Even if the internal turmoil persists, ever quantifiable in vibrational incidence.
MASSIMO RICCI. TOUCHING EXTREMES. 