Elevator Bath

The Way Things Go is a double vinyl album released in the spring of 2011, inclusive of a code for a digital download (in mp3 format). Rick Reed has gathered six works realized in the 2001-2010 time span, but there’s actually no conspicuous difference in repercussive strength between a piece and another. The instrumentation used by the American composer – we might even start calling him “maverick”, for he truly deserves this worn out credential – comprises as usual historic analogue synthesizers, short (and sine) waves, and found sounds of different derivation. No room for laptops in this matchless universe. The mission is attributing a tangible multi-dimensionality to a wide-ranging vibration, without forgetting the underlying psycho-social implications. The very cover of this limited edition is adorned by Reed’s own artwork that, possibly better than any other rationalization, connects with his research on the pliability of evil-boding timbres mixed with the echoes of an existing underworld, perfectly symbolized by the mutating ruggedness of “Capitalism Child Labor”.

Sporadically associated with artists whose abstractions represent a trademark, Reed details instead his sonic routes in rather graphic fashion. It’s easy to be riveted by disturbing resonance, gradual sloping and intense throbbing, especially when exploiting consistent volume in large environments. Dithering pitches and uneven dynamics set a few traps for the listeners’ attentiveness, lulling them inside half-catatonic spirals replete with low-frequency rubdowns (“Celestial Mudpie” and, in particular, “Hidden Voices Pt.1”) or weirdly configured loops (the title track’s finale at the end of the set). On a close listen, though, it appears that the man’s talent is not so much as a dispatcher of nonfigurative bulletins, in spite of the supreme significance of every shade – blurred or less. What Reed manages to warrant, which is still a prohibitive target for many practitioners employing comparable sources, is our full comprehension of each passage according to a logic of innate consecutiveness that furnishes all the tracks with an aura of inescapability. The sort of matter that needs no justification or intellectual breakdown, the sheer acoustic indicator of an evolution that we, as individual beings, should have implemented a long while ago and now lies dying amidst millions of self-styled good intentions, futile words carving unspoken desperation into billions of brains.

TUM

An engaging CD from 2009, arbitrarily picked among the gobs of eternally waiting promos. Finnish guitarist Kalima was so affected by a Stanley Kubrick exhibition fortuitously attended in Belgium that he decided to render some of the premises of the celebrated director’s films in sound. To this end he assembled a drumless quartet including saxophonist Mikko Innanen, accordionist Veli Kujala (who plays a quarter-tone instrument for the occasion) and double bassist Teppo Hauta-aho. Part of the music is quite exactly notated; other segments are instead conceived on the spot, with a distinct propensity to atmospheric creepiness in sinister environments. The initial impact of the opening track “Overlook Hotel” (of Shining renown) instantly made me mutter – perhaps superficially – the words “Univers Zero”, a brilliantly energetic melange of chamber counterpoint and dark-progressive hues. With the passage of time, the relationship between the close intervals of Kujala’s accordion and the oscillating lines of Innanen’s sax becomes the most discernible trait, an ingenious plasticity not frequently found in kindred units. The accurate itemization of a composite acoustic texture provides moments in which one manages to reach a level of relative absent-mindedness enhanced by the instrumental fluctuation. Focus for a minute on the single components, though, and not an inch of slapdash noodling is detectable. Au fond, a rationally devised, well-performed work that deserves more than just a “file under” dismissive note.

Solar Ipse Audio House

Second outing by the Morgia / Magliocchi duo after Sound Gates on Ultramarine (unheard here). Eight tracks, 38 minutes total, a warts-and-all kind of recording corresponding to a bootleg of relatively fine quality, which in a way enhances the quest for extremist attributes in the sonority at large. Morgia’s impurity on the guitar is expressed with a constant flow of mutating unkindness: grating strings, picks slicing pickups, vibrato bar abused more than caressed, feedback bent to the wishes of the gods of noise. Magliocchi interacts with drums and self-built percussion, apparently contradicting the partner’s directions but in reality finding ways to settle matters via aluminous pictures, toy xylophone-like micro-patterns and snappish bursts. When a compromise isn’t reached a measure of mayhem arises, and we’re reminded of realities whose place is halfway through Shamballa (William Hooker & Thurston Moore) and Best Laid Plans (David Torn & Geoffrey Gordon). Not a masterpiece, despite the Hendrix + Sharrock + Haino comparison of the press release – Italy is second to none when over-hype is necessary – but definitely a record that transmits energies dictated by a full-blooded animation. Still, the mix’s insufficient sharpness reduces the opportunities of appreciating details that in all likelihood would increase the performance’s apparent worth.

Creative Sources

Norwegian duo operating a pair of acoustic guitars laid on a table (one of them a 12-string), low budget electronics, a Discman and a dictaphone. I had enjoyed Volden’s work with Toshimaru Nakamura on Another Timbre, the brilliant Crepuscular Rays, but don’t seem to recall anything featuring Grønvold in my past inspections. The choice – as a number of artists recording for the Portuguese label do – of keeping things restricted inside the duration limit of half an hour is an intelligent one, especially when the sounds produced are absorbing enough like in this circumstance. It all starts with well-coagulated humming – of the type that immediately clogs the ears and the skull, changing its constitution according to our listening perspective. Then we’re off to a long piece defined by inhomogeneous droning and pallid strumming, the vibrational qualities of the various parts of the guitar somehow besmirched by unconsolidated electronic attendances materializing in scattered guise to change the level of pressure; thus, the atmosphere oscillates from tangibly mesmeric to mildly disarranged. A third important component – also sealing the record after an extended silent break towards the end – is shaped by a sporadic jangling chime that, in a way, made me think about Laraaji and his zithers, but with less “celestial” implications. I would recommend playing this CD quite loud and, as always, in peaceful environments to better enjoy its unostentatious aura.

Creative Sources

Double bassist and sculptor Frangenheim possesses an impressive curriculum, having worked with a large number of advocators of modern-day instrumental sapience (Cecil Taylor, Christian Weber and Walter & Sabrina come to mind). This CD from a couple of years ago is a valid assertion of his individual value, seventeen tracks – several of them quite short, nearly aphoristic – executed with inspired confidence financed by a manifest deftness. Many albums for solo bass have been published in the last decades; the instrument is a constant source of fantastic sounds if handled by the right species of modest virtuoso. Frangenheim surely belongs in the domain of the finest inventive instrumentalists I’ve heard of late. Concisely cryptic, and yet rich in improvisational visions and timbral variety, all we hear appears as a temporal arrangement of firm, almost calculated gestures, radical values intertwined within fascinating technical permutations. The entire palette is exploited with critical balance, nary an acoustic shade getting wasted. An educated awareness of the relationships between the bareness of empty space and the tones that are destined to inhabit it allows the music to breathe and expand, sober elegance easily meshed with the correct dosage of lawlessness. An excellent release from an artist whose work should be exposed to wider audiences.

Prefecture

One just needs to read the name of trombonist Stuart Dempster and hear the first few seconds of Flight Patterns to instantly ascertain the ambit in which the music fluctuates: age-long reverberations inside a large cistern, a specialization of the aforesaid Dempster and, among others, Pauline Oliveros. Percussionists/multi-instrumentalists Paul Kikuchi and Jesse Olsen (Open Graves) are also concerned with the act of immersing themselves into the same kind of vacuum, as they did in a previous album called Hollow Lake on this very imprint. You know, following this introduction, what to expect and I won’t try to circumnavigate the facts: this sort of setting does bring forth attractively resonant frequencies enriched by clattering metals and ominous thuds, but this is a formula that has been employed many a time now. The risk is that of a chancy mingle-mangle, putting side-by-side technically equipped artists and late-coming applicants who get lucky in locating the right geographical spots to let natural phenomena do the job in lieu of an authenticated musicianship. At any rate, despite the lack of surprises this CD remains pleasing enough to listen to. But not at truly prodigious levels of vibrating wisdom.

Ultra Mail Prod

The name “Colin Potter” instantly rings bells in the head of experts of Nurse With Wound, Ora, Monos and parallel galaxies, not to mention a clutch of hidden beauties released as a solo artist. Back in the late 70s/early 80s, the man was already producing a sizeable quantity of recorded materials on limited edition tapes, the opening experiments in a route that led him to the above mentioned heights besides fabricating other kinds of sounds for exhibitions and documentaries at his ICR studio. These archeological fragments have now been gathered in a lavish box set, which includes old cassette releases A Gain and Two Nights, a pair of volumes of Recent History and (in the first 200 copies of 400) a fifth CD of unreleased tracks, splendidly titled Deja Who?. You might think that listening to almost five hours of this substance would be a chore, but guess what: I started spinning, and time just flew.

The general sensation while enjoying the material was one of “evolved post-industrialism” often flowing into a cut-rate kind of modern minimalism replete with cheap keyboards and additional gizmos which, in the right hands, can yield enthrallingly weird results. Obsessive repetitions and sequenced patterns abound, at times mixing with improbably articulated guitar lines. Proto-techno rhythm machines and digestible-yet-unusual melodic designs made me envisage a cross of vintage Asmus Tietchens and the warped soundtracks published eons ago by the Mike Ratledge/Karl Jenkins duo (albums such as Some Shufflin’ and Push Button are still seen around). Among the later episodes, a stunning piece for a Jonathan Coleclough project resounds with didgeridoo drones all over the place; hints to more “advanced” techniques and newer synthetic patches also begin to emerge in several of the bonus disc’s chapters.

Assessing this collection rekindled the flame of nostalgia: I thought about the innumerable days spent near my multitrack devices as a youngster, crafting various forms of off-centre “music” that I will never have the nerve to regard as valuable for an audience. Potter did, instead, and we’re lucky that he’s not so shy. His precise timing and sense of structure were impeccable thirty years ahead, and the irony transpiring from the short descriptions of the pieces elicits a few smiles. At the end of the day, great stuff.

Circum Disc

A series of mathematic calculations lies at the basis of Stones Air Axioms, a recording born in St.Pierre’s Cathedral, Poitiers. Tilly and Guionnet measured distances and estimated precise points for huge waves coming from the church’s organ to resonate in union with a white noise generator. Given the complexity of the explanations read in the booklet I was expecting more in terms of sheer sensation and emotional response, for organ drones can work wonders if taken in the right doses at the right moment. Yet what you find here sounds somewhat rough, undeniably firm (whamming clusters shaking the atmosphere a bit), obviously designed to exploit the pure power of the originating instrument while various types of smaller acoustic events coexist. This means that, while most probably a direct experience would be next to intimidating (low frequencies abound throughout, and they punch hard), the definitive version contained by this disc appears as a certification of the experimentation rather than something destined to stay, with all the implications that one could imagine as far as psychological effects and impact on the memory are concerned. Surely those who in 2010 attended the MicroClima Festival – the event for which the piece was created – have clearer ideas and retain flashes of deep impression in the mind, however at the fourth consecutive listen I still haven’t managed to determine the level of indispensableness of this release. Which may even be a good sign.

Clean Feed

It’s not merely a matter of expertise. When artistic entities such as Dennis González and João Paulo meet, there’s a third factor in the equation, specifically an instinctive capacity of establishing with deadly accuracy how many pitches should get played, and how long or short they should be. Not to mention how certain silences weigh amidst these muted conversations. So Soft Yet, which follows Scapegrace (same label) is a 59-minute collection of dejected moods, evocative pastels and calm experimentations depicted by trumpet, cornet, acoustic and electric piano. It’s a fine testimonial – better than the previous one, if you ask me – of two musicians attempting to shine by evoking the ghost of an understated beauty instead of hiding behind technical brilliance (an element that, in case of doubt, lies at the basis of both beings). In pieces such as “El Destierro” a clairvoyance of sorts permits a reciprocal anticipation of the respective moves, the resulting music appearing superbly designed in its gradual development. The soulful sedimentation generated by these fragments of higher sceneries is something that a reviewer can’t stuff into a pot: just let the notes flow, realizing that implications are everywhere. Unspoken or less.

Self Release

From Baltimore to Brooklyn, Turn Around Norman’s shoulders carry years of experience in lots of diverse genres and impressive resumes flashing names such as Tim Berne, Uri Caine and Dave Douglas among the many partnerships. We Turn Around – their debut release – comprises nine tracks and lasts 70 minutes. The lineup is shaped as follows: Cam Collins (sax), JJ Wright (piano and Wurlitzer), Adam Hopkins (bass) and Nathan Ellman-Bell (drums). Positive features striking the ear since the very beginning: the genuine brio with which these gentlemen tackle every tune – a fervency substantiated by high-calibre musicianship – and the immoderate versatility that they show, allowing the quartet to shift the music’s gravity across a wide range of styles. From contemporary jazz-rock to lyrical soundtrack-ish themes; from jarringly dense improvisations to fractured metres in minimalist sauce, the guys handle whatever hot potato gets thrown at them with ease. The latter, regrettably, is also the reason behind my incomplete commendation. Despite the acknowledged strength of each member’s instrumental deftness, the band’s sound as a whole seems to scratch a lot of surfaces without really deepening the grooves – which, ultimately, results in a lack of definite personality. I don’t know if this was a deliberate move to gain the favours of varicoloured types of audience; upon repeated listens the inkling is that, in this case, the polyhedral façade might hide a hunt for critical laurels (translation: more copies sold) as the main goal, regardless of any value related to artistic permanence. It wouldn’t be a problem at all, but in this area the fight to see the light is against hundreds of similar specimens and, except when a unit produces something truly particular, this reviewer’s curiosity tends to dwindle.

Whereabouts

The cover photo seems to betray a case of barely contained foot fetishism, but I won’t get into it. I had already reviewed music by Onodera and Jorge Mantas (the real name behind The Beautiful Schizophonic), even positively when looking back at the writeups. However, let’s be direct: this is New Age wallpaper at best, mostly revolving around the same formula: static background, simplistic piano melodies, predictable synthetic washes and field recordings, woman whispering a text in “This Crying Age” (besides, a title used over 20 years ago by post-industrial cult figure Morthond in a much better album). After a while, one expects another cloying voice – male or female, your choice – to recite “Those born under the sign of Libra will have a wonderful day of love and fulfilment…”. Enough said, and – very sincerely – I wonder how in the world this kind of stuff still finds a way to my mailbox.

Black & White Cat Press

Guitarist David Birchall, double bassist Olie Brice and percussionist Phillip Marks recorded these seven improvised tracks in Manchester, October 2011. The interplay is distinguished by a fair degree of concentration in large quantities of succeeding events: no room for lingering silences here, though one clearly detects the attention with which the players listen to each other. Quite significantly, the timbral wholeness sounds crunchily lumpy, positively appetizing and rather nonconventional in spite of the customariness of the instruments utilized. In “Wall Of Horns”, Birchall extracts infinitesimal particles of feedback and iridescent picked droplets as Brice’s arco spreads harmonics all over the place, moulding frequencies until they sound like drunken flutes; Marks counterpoints with charming snippets of assorted percussive belongings. “Back Spasm” hiccups and hobbles amidst several kinds of controlled contractions, delivering us from the urge of locating a regular beat (something that you’ll never find in the abundant hour of this CD). Just a pair of examples of what the trio can do, often in condensed temporal stretches. Focused listeners are challenged without resorting to gratuitous aggressiveness, thus allowing a more than partial comprehension of the mechanisms lying at the basis of the instrumental interaction.

New World

One thing’s for sure: Anne La Berge’s music does not beg for immediate love. The Amsterdam-based Californian composer explicits visions through a unique compound of advanced technique, mathematical rationality and sensible investigation of issues that elsewhere would probably go unnoticed. For example “800 Speakers”, closing track of this brilliant collection, is an intelligently touching account of how speakers have always been a fundamental part of her growth and experimentations. Similarly to many other pieces by La Berge, it makes the most of the basic components – text, live performance on the flute and computerized environments – upon which the bulk of her opus is focused.

Classically trained and gifted with a “ferocious and far-reaching virtuosity”, La Berge defies a classification in the traditional roles of avantgarde art, preferring instead to concentrate on what she calls “guided improvisations” carried out across a wide gamut of interactive settings. The use of Max/MSP is essential throughout, the software furnishing the players with not exactly predictable incidents to which they respond with intuition and expertise. Fragments of texts are utilized for additional levels of interaction: in “Drive”, an imaginary interview with Mary Anderson (first deviser of the windscreen wiper) gets intertwined with inhospitable landscapes where the flute is indeed, in Bob Gilmore’s words, “closer to punk guitar styles than to anything from the classical wind tradition”. “Away” inserts a poem about the experience of separation within a microtonal tapestry of synthesized pitches; the work was originally commissioned for Stephen Altoft’s 19-tone trumpet, and La Berge herself has been involved in the development of the quarter-tone flute that she frequently uses. In “ur_DU” a letter by Marie Curie to a friend is mingled with sounds that describe rather perfectly the radioactive properties of uranium, the resulting concoction sounding “impenetrably human”. The record’s best episode “Brokenheart” is almost entirely performed – in masterful fashion – by Cor Fuhler (a longtime creative partner of La Berge), who generates a small universe of drones, zither-like plinks and electrically bowed strings inside a piano, fitting the whole around mechanical emissions, sinetones and a spoken description of the broken heart syndrome.

Seriousness is rapidly becoming a rare commodity, but here’s the vivid evidence of a bright mind’s refusal to comply to several of today’s unwritten rules. An excellent release, very highly recommended.

Edgetone

More bad news for your mental steadiness. Doctor Bob is back with his warped-sounding philosophy of semi-coherent cynical pragmatism in the wake of Dark Times, released on this very label a few years ago. Bob Marsh (cello, voice) and David Michalak (lap steel guitar) follow the most freakish directions furnished by extreme processing to develop an intoxicated poetry whose contents might induce an unsuspecting ordinary individual to quit listening right away. Two main reasons: 1) Excess of fluctuation inside an ocean of dissonance, in which guests such as Karen Stackpole, Andre Custodio and Bill Noertker navigate with gusto. 2) The combination of unconscious babbling, REM-phase pictorial deformation and harsh truths delivered by Marsh throughout the record. All of the above culminates in reflections on the lack of time before we run completely out of it – this writer is perfectly sympathetic in regard to the subject – and the chances that we regular folks have to make it safely nowadays (“someone says 50/50… how about 1/100, or 1/1.000.000?”, it is said at one point). Fiendish cacophonies, viscid embryos of songs and the renunciation to any kind of consolatory message certify that this CD is basically destined to be ejected from the player after mere minutes. Wrong move: it’s great stuff, produced by trained musicians who just don’t want to do something normal.

Self Release

A transgendered blend of ominous aural warnings, remote sonic entities, unfathomable poundings, celestial isolationism and randomized electronic discharges. Thus one could lyophilize in words the latest effort by John Gore under the mask of his Kirchenkampf alter ego. With The Syntax Of Mercy we have luckily returned to the sort of scarcely predictable abstractness that is typical of the man’s best output: nonspecific structures and indistinct echoes prevail, though there is space left for a couple of galactic battles where the noisiest eruptions might scare those who had fantasized about a comfortable “dark ambient afternoon”. Gore knows better (indeed he’s among the few remained in this area able to steer clear of routine), never exceeding the right doses of salt in the recipes. Translation: leave the music do what it was supposed to do without interfering with the mind, and the results will be congenial to your motivation in avoiding any surplus of logical fanaticism. This is how the machina functions when its deus is so liberal-minded.

Cotton Goods

Dan Weinstein’s heartrending cello, Carmina Escobar’s vocal superimpositions in “The Cradle” and other distant human reverberations captured who knows where – sometimes the ambiences that surround them recall large areas such as a museum, or an airport’s waiting hall – identify this 28-minute CD by Ido Govrin, who confirms the recognized fortitude of his vision and the unquestionable impact of the fruits of his creativity in this listener’s disposition. The origin of The Revisit lies in a reflection about the methods through which a composer may generate new meaningful forms while utilizing existing classical materials, still leaving the doors open to suggestions for further ideas born from those very sources. A complex description that in a way contradicts the extremely simple but absolutely not one-dimensional materialization of these five tracks. Were I to locate familiar tones and/or structures in the music, I would miserably fail. What becomes instantly apparent is that all pieces are permeated by an inescapable sense of regret: unhurried contrapuntal designs textured by extended pitches, gentle rupturing of silence, unselfish recollections, sudden disappearances of regular notes for resounding low hums (“The Landscape”). Everything sounds intensely felt and utterly touching in this grey-tinged acoustic milieu, recorded live without samples and only subsequently edited in the studio.

Leo

The trio’s name derives from the fact that all the members, in a way or another, play a “bass” instrument. Bass clarinet and bass flute (Gebhard Ullmann), double bass and objects (both Chris Dahlgren and Clayton Thomas). Lowering the outstanding profundity of the collective textural palette to a mere “exploration of the low regions of the acoustic range” definition would be a deadly sin, for Bx3 are one of those units able to instantly elicit a sense of genuine awe. Furthermore, I love when a record transmits an absence of ego ever since its very first instants, which is exactly what happens in Transatlantic. The riveting qualities of coarse-grained drones given out by competent musicians is alone a generous gift, but refined subtleties and bitty variations also abound over the course of these magnificent tracks. The preparations have a definite say – minute string-bouncing, zinging-and-knocking insertions and meticulous placement of well-coordinated “musical noises” frequently orientate the interplay towards the realm of quietly efficient EAI. However, a strong backbone characterizes every instant of the disc: no whistling, no fizzing, no burbling. Tones and upper partials exist and breathe, each with its own special meaning. Their consolidation gives the idea of an earthy progression achieved through a mix of concentrated labour and sensitive reaction to the immediate circumstances. Reciprocal listening and utter ear-openness become nearly tactile when the whole is sized up via headphones. This notwithstanding, we’re not going to deny that the really stirring consequences will be savoured by letting it resonate, thus increasing the vibrational percentage in the air.

Dragon’s Eye

Stéphane Claude’s moniker and a few parts of this CD – where sine waves occupy the large part of the audio spectrum – instantly connect the mind with Eleh, the semi-anonymous peddler of cheap Eliane Radigue miniature replicas hyped by the reviewing herds until yesterday (even yours truly had sounded tentatively optimistic in regard to a previous release of the arcane manipulator, changing idea shortly thereafter; now, finally, some crack in the ice of vacuity starts to appear). But Claude’s project – which includes multimedia artist Gisèle Trudel as a permanent collaborator, with the irregular participation of other donors – started in 1996. Though not world-shattering as far as the overall sonority is concerned, the sonic product does possess a degree of authenticity and is (mostly) pleasing as acoustic complement. I won’t annoy the readers by repeating the circumstances which brought to the completion of Riding (check the label’s website). The basic constituents include field recordings – washing sea waters especially, but not solely – plus the above mentioned “binaural beating sine waves” (the best sound one can enjoy in a 39-minute arc, even if certain processed ambiences also generate stimulating effects on the auricular membranes) and the lone disconcerting ingredient, namely sequences of synthetic tones that seem to have been stolen from Ryuichi Sakamoto’s soundtrack of Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence and subjected to a drastic reduction of the sample rate. If you mix the whole and let it go, say, three times in a row at late evening the results will be easily endurable and, intermittently, nerve-cuddling.

Riti

The fact that Joe Morris has become a prominent double bassist after just twelve years of practising the instrument is in itself a special achievement. Still, Traits – a record that features him with the alto/tenor sax tandem of Jim Hobbs and Peter Cancura, plus drummer Luther Gray – is important for a lot of different reasons, the single participants’ adroitness being merely one. The attribute that instantly made us feel a part of the music’s flow is a combination of exemption from formulas – or, if you prefer, authentic freedom – and unpremeditated propulsion, a conjunction of elements that induces a functional, almost physical impact of this recording as an organic whole. This requires a specific connectedness, something that comes with long periods of reciprocal acquaintance: sharing stretches of life while growing as a performing collective is fundamental to avoid the cliché-ridden vacuousness shown by a good number of satiated jazz units. There’s room for agile bass soloism, for scorching altercations (but also emotional concordance) between the reeds and, in the case of Gray, for displaying a command of several percussive idioms without giving the idea of showing off. The fusion of Hobbs and Cancura’s challenging spurts with the ever-creative fibrous consistency of the leader’s lines turns the basis of what would risk to be a regular improvisation set into a collection of agnostic hymns to the abolishment of grant-searching expediency. This means much more to me than describing drum rolls and saxophone blasts; it’s how these details commingle that makes the difference here.

Innova

In Philip Blackburn’s audible cosmos, the blurred recollection of foregone mental imagery and/or experiences represents a crucial factor; the compositional bulk of Ghostly Psalms is in fact typified by an oneiric temperament which belies the painstaking assemblage of constituents that characterizes them. This is especially manifest in the nine movements of the main opus, indeed derived from a complex dream that Blackburn had in 1982 which took almost three decades to set in adequate musical form. Hundreds of layered sources – instruments, voices and location recordings – generate sonic landscapes in which each listener can find points of entrance, associating individual evidences and memories to constantly morphing scenarios.

The result is comparable to a protracted hallucination, distinguishable traces emerging from the indefinite awareness of a somewhat mystical inscrutability. Orchestral elements such as Ellen Fullman’s long strings, organs, choirs, Asian reeds, diverse types of self-made apparata and voices – intelligible or not – become transitory guide lights of sorts across various stages of intellectual disarray, also enhanced by the composer’s liner notes replete with citations and references but absolutely ineffective in giving an idea of how the whole sounds. Translating dreams into words is an ever-impossible task but the music gets nearer, letting us perceive vivid glimpses of how another being attempts, to use Blackburn’s own narration, to parse the universe. Maybe Jean-Claude Eloy could be a helpful, if vague parallelism in terms of general sonority. A note of curiosity: while I was listening to this piece on the train, some of the harsher harmonic clusters escaping from my headphones caused a couple of idiots (male and female) to tap my shoulder and ask me to lessen the volume, something that not even Peter Brötzmann and Borbetomagus had managed to achieve until now. The unfortunates were promptly told to go where the sun never shines, should someone have any doubt.

Whereas the conclusive “Gospel Jihad”, based on two contrasting groups of singers (one performing more or less traditionally, the other literally spitting venom while dissecting “bellicose” incitements transcribed from old hymns) appears as “dramatic art” rather than “rendition of a score” – and, in truth, Blackburn’s best description is that of a man who “likes the acoustic coupling of sound and space” in the inner leaflet – the initial “Duluth Harbor Serenade” is perhaps the most immediately impressive work on offer here, inexplicably forgotten in the lone “authoritative” review read about this CD to date. Constructed as a titanic gathering of human and environmental activities explicated in circa eight minutes recorded on Labor Day’s Weekend of 2011, it’s an engrossing procession of noisy machines, tooting ship horns, lifting bridges and truck brakes mixed with Tibetan and French horns, gongs, “semi-submerged chimes” and too many additional phenomena to be listed in a writeup. The perfect snapshot of a place that, according to the instigator, “resounds with messages and signals, communication codes, and noises with meaning” which “reflect from the hills or are carried over open water depending on the wind direction”.

Relative Pitch

Aych is a trio comprising saxophonist Jim Hobbs (who composed five of the twelve pieces; the remaining seven are collectively credited), guitarist Mary Halvorson and trumpeter Taylor Bo Hynum. Stylistically speaking, this is a thorny proposition in that there is no actual “style” involved, unless you want to include hints to dynamic chamber jazz (“Cydonia’s Face”), old-hat blues (“Over Yonder”) and the somewhat canonic structure of the conclusive “Il Est Écrite Que La Vie Se Réfugie En Un Seul Espace”. The improvised materials are fairly nonconforming, ranging from the free-form vigor of “The First Time” (Halvorson switching to distortion and picking like a woman possessed) to the twitching circuits of “High Noon” (Hobbs trying to balance Hynum’s composite wailing with calmer lines, Halvorson contributing to the general disorientation via insolent fingerings and chordal dissidence). The subsequent “Kekionga” would work fine as a replacement soundtrack for a cyber version of The Blues Brothers, harmonically suspended strums and cadenced interaction between sax and trumpet at the basis of a bizarre type of drive; everything flows in unison juxtapositions that are going to hit the chin of those who consider standard beats as bible. “Forest Of The Dead King” is perhaps the most inexplicable episode, mixing sensitive vigilance and instrumental flimsiness in equal doses. A semi-controlled stillness informs the title track, stern linear visions affirming a not-exactly-tranquil contemplativeness. What results upon repeated listens is a sharp versatility alimented by the threesome’s will to test their ability in territories that might or might not appear familiar. An archetypal sleeper: it left us intriguingly doubtful at the beginning, progressively persuaded with each new spin.

Zarek 

Given that a reviewer receives copious quantities of promos, the obvious risk is that masterworks may remain buried amidst towering masses of stuff. It Ain’t Necessarily So is one of those great records, something that strikes and asks for repeated spins right away. It’s a double CD released in 2008 documenting a performance taped two years prior at Vienna’s Porgy And Bess, in which the union between Palestine and Perlonex (Ignaz Schick, Jörg Maria Zeger and Burkhard Beins) produces genuinely supernatural sonorities. To be perfectly clear, this material is largely superior to their first recorded meeting in 2006’s Tensions on Nexsound. There’s a series of factors explaining the force of this set. Both entities sound utterly determined in extracting precious essences from a communion of intents: nothing gets wasted, every gesture revealing a definite purpose in spite of the atmosphere of shamanistic entrancement maintained throughout (culminating in Palestine’s deformation of the famous Gershwin song, a moment of incongruous bewilderment that cannot fail to affect). 

Yet the main reason behind the magnificence of the textural gravity is the near-perfection in the amalgamation of the sources. Perlonex use percussion, guitars, effects, sine wave generators, loopers and various objects to produce droning grains that – put in comparison with the American’s now compellingly repetitive, now gently rarefied piano – literally expand our awareness in a bewitching rite of private absorption. The second disc in particular contains a long phase (developed along a segment identified with the name “Part Two”) in which we can’t call the result “music” anymore. What’s heard is a fusion of vibrating spirits, including those of a transfixed audience that releases what was kept inside before in deserved ovations at the end, which comes after inherent tension and acoustic ruggedness are gradually amplified in a spectacular crescendo. 

Get a copy of this release by any possible means, and do not listen to it if someone else is around. Isolation is mandatory in these cases.

Monotype

An excellent double CD from about three years ago, just recently scanned in depth. A pair of independent works, not a collaboration; each participant is represented by his own opus.

Disc 1 contains an extensive piece by Marchetti – “Kitnabudja Town” – formerly published (in dissimilar structure, and under the name Roger De La Frayssenet) on Metamkine in 1995. At that time dedicated to his Corsican grandfather Antoine and future artistic partner Jérôme Noetinger, this might be called a contemporary radio drama with a pinch of field recordings thrown in for good measure. Maybe. There are episodes where things appear deceitfully illogical – at times hilarious – with a definite feel of pre-planned disorder. Accelerated tapes transforming melodic singers into munchkins are alternated with long stretches of conversation (mostly in French, but not exclusively), dramatic fragments of theatre and raucous outbursts of music from different eras, genres and continents (I had almost forgotten Paul Hardcastle’s “19”…). Highlights are created by combining a muffled type of poignancy – anonymous arias from Mediterranean/Arab regions joined by disturbing resonances from the ether, for example – with the in-your-face qualities of local disco and rap acts (James Brown’s “Sex Machine” and Louis Armstrong’s “What A Wonderful World” also emerge briefly, for that matter). A truly hard-to-depict hotchpotch, made of millions of voices, snippets and spontaneous (?) associations. The composer definitely knew how to use the available tools and sources; we remained alert and satisfied throughout.

The second item is a 51-minute effort by Jean-Baptiste Favory: a less known but certainly not unworthy artist, and an opening meeting for yours truly. “Des Sphères” is a yang to Marchetti’s yin (or vice versa, according to fanciful points of view). This means that the sonic substance is calmer, inspiring visions of vastness while keeping the listener reasonably unperturbed. Slowly spreading textures dominated by low-range electronic frequencies swell across bubbling liquids and infinitesimal formations whose contribution to the overall scenario becomes appreciable only via headphone listening. With the passage of the minutes the picture changes slightly, introducing components of moderate interference and modulation of synthetic fonts, yet the initial semi-static foundation continues until the end. A connection with early Tangerine Dream – perhaps with a mild Jon Hassell fragrance at some point – would not look entirely out of place, the near-psychedelic fumes released by the simmering pot carrying our memory back of several decades. Ultimately, the lingering sensation is that of bathing in astral fluids, and feeling better after having cleansed the intellect. Appreciators of the most comforting milieus generated by Roland Kayn and Harley Gaber should have no problems in finding pleasure by tasting this.

Self-Release

You will notice that there’s not the usual link preceding the review. In fact, I received this CD courtesy of my gentle friend Jeongeun Maeng – a sound therapist who occasionally translates parts of Touching Extremes into Korean (may heaven bless her!). The disc comprises four performances for traditional instruments and voice by master percussionist Ryu In Sang, trained in the more classic forms of this language yet approaching this particular recording with fresher ideas in his mind. “Impression”, by the way, is the lone English word on the whole cover; how the pieces were conceived was explained to yours truly in an accompanying letter, an archetypal case of learning something new and feeling a little less ignorant thanks to someone else’s benevolence. The tracks are remarkably played and intoned, moods ranging from ritual Buddhist chanting accompanied by soft resonant metal to virtuoso displays running the gamut between Steve Reich’s reiterative intricacies in “Drumming” and polymorphic structures of patterns and rhythms. One of the chapters bears a striking resemblance with a native Indian ceremonial: even the very idiom might vaguely recall, to untaught ears, phonemes heard in that kind of background. All in all, once we got used to the music’s nature it was not hard to let ourselves be permeated by the unambiguous sense of legitimate spirituality that it conveys. Not to mention the effects of some of certain ringing auras on our short-term stability.

Should someone want a copy of this item, please get in touch and I’ll gladly try to help.

Auf Abwegen

The German city of Darmstadt is where Marc Behrens was born in 1970, and 20 Zonen is a suitable homage to the locality. To gather resources for the project, Behrens visited many familiar districts and recorded – with typical competence – a plethora of organic, tangible and automatic sounds, adding a couple of paradoxical touches in the shape of small fragments of a fanfare band opening and closing the piece. The ever-winning murmur of ephemeral airplanes also appears in appropriate contexts. The distinction between the signs of urban development and the acoustic characteristics of various natural environments is even more conspicuous when the juxtapositions are made with commonsensical rationality and clear consideration of the tiniest details. Birds, frogs and soaked ambiences get adjusted to the clangor of a passing train, and the noise of potent machines is a well-received attendance rather than constituting a factor of aggravation. The composer manages to engage us totally in a soundscape that doesn’t look like a mere series of events, but a logical progression of episodes – somewhat linked by an invisible thread – whose aural incidence evokes a long-ago that we all seem to miss one way or another.

Pogus

Noah Creshevsky is a man who cares about a correct interpretation, as one can tell even by noticing the refreshing precision of his writing; from the same communicative cloth comes the meticulousness that he applies to the process of creating music. Rounded With A Sleep – first solitary release for Al Margolis’ imprint – transmits a deep sense of attainment through a sequence of refined compositional frameworks. However, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to appreciate the fruits of Creshevsky’s juxtapositions; the most notable quality is a rare ability in turning complexity into glowing crystals of comprehensibility. The package of Hyperrealism – this is how the “genre” is called – incorporates hours, weeks and months of painstaking studio work. Still, our ears perceive an immediate luminousness, a mélange of clever temperament and soulful composure indicating the transition from mere divertissement to fine art.

As always, the starting points are samples of human and instrumental origin. From thousands of snippets, either utilized in their natural range or transposed, Creshevsky constructs pieces that clearly show his classical training as an essential background. In this composite world, where we can barely guess if an harpsichord is really an harpsichord (it might be an altered guitar, but it’s not a problem), sonic instances from diverse eras fuse like in a miracle, and the hyper-poly-a-tonality of several of those designs causes an attentive listener to vacillate across various stages of relative insecurity. We’re prevented from lying down and get comfortable, but – quite preposterously – receive positive stimuli exactly for that reason. There’s no time to ask “what was that?”, yet an omni-comprehensive vision of a whole is achieved at the end of each track. You just need to play the record again to better fix certain spots and glimpses of (presumed) knowledge of the raw material.

Speaking of which, a definite highlight is represented by Tomomi Adachi’s implausibly amusing phonemes: a collage of babbled syllables, strained air intakes and Japanese accents amidst aleatory vibraphone zigzags making “Tomomi Adachi Redux II” a cardinal improver of any intelligent iPod list. Incidentally, I wonder how a collaboration between Creshevsky and scat-machine extraordinaire Lorin Benedict would turn out. Other salient moments are to be found in the magnificent “The Kindness Of Strangers” – a tapestry of modified voice, guitar, bass, lap-steel and banjo that makes those narrow-ranged instruments depict atmospheres of boundlessness – and the conclusive “In Memoriam”, Juho Laitinen’s cello as the basis of a complex type of solemnity replete with glorious resonant shades.

Singling out parts is not an effective option when examining such a kaleidoscopic statement. Go with the flow, letting this combination of unlikely junctures and multifarious timbres inspire your sensation of being, including aspects we’re not ready to immediately grasp.

Moonjune

Streams of energetic music spring from everywhere in Metamorphic Rock. Moraine, here captured at the 2010 edition of NEARfest, are shaped by guitarist Dennis Rea (a known quantity that does not betray expectations), the impressive reed/violin duo of James and Alicia DeJoie, and the equally compelling rhythm section of bassist Kevin Millard and drummer Stephen Cavit. The on-stage setting definitely added to the overall high-octane drive, but there’s no questioning the band’s technical cojones as the basis of the success of this CD, a rare case of non-annoyance for this gradually live-despising reviewer. Progressive and Eastern spices appear as important factors in the mix, though Rea is a man able to find his way through numerous stylistic locations, his saturated tone filling the air decisively yet without extreme heaviness. The interaction between the violin and the saxophones – a compound of grittiness and silk characterizing a good number of vamps and designs – is perhaps the most beautiful facet. The rhythmic body is well chiselled, not missing a beat in any sense. The result is a convincing interlocking of Gong-spiced corporeality perfumed with slimly exotic melodic essences, occasionally enhanced by a somewhat unpromising temper reminiscent of far-famed themes – think John Barry meets Peter Gunn with a cross of (less aroused) Mahavishnu and Rush as backing band. Play loud and have fun, but don’t forget to notice the subtleties – there are many.

Moonjune

In the beginning, Machine Mass Trio was born as a collateral project of douBt, with which two members – drummer Tony Bianco and guitarist Michel Delville – are shared. The third element is Belgian reedman Jordi Grognard, who adds traces of lyricism to a handful of tracks that were recorded live in the studio, without overdubs. Indeed As Real As Thinking presents several pros and just a few cons deriving from the above referenced state of affairs. One good thing is that the trio almost never shows signs of indolence, the music generally verging on the vibrant side of things. The irrefutable knowledge of the contestants makes sure that descents into the hell of blast-and-jam vacuity are mostly averted. This is indubitably a relief, given the amount of genres and moods touched: atonal electro-jazz vibes, rocking riffage and ritual Om (though generated by the instruments) all belong to the recipe. On occasion, the variable interests of the band cause the clarity of intents to dwindle a bit, and there are in truth scattered minutes where the musicians seem to struggle to find a legitimate improvisational structure. Yet the bulk of the record is solid enough to prevent the listener from focusing too much on those slightly anaemic moments.

Clean Feed

Cologne’s Loft is a venue where very good things usually happen when improvising musicians perform. This stellar duet between sax maestros is no exception: recorded in 2007, it features Parker on soprano and Leimgruber on tenor, exchanging darts of creative thinking with a mixture of snappy commitment and no-nonsense technical facility, prowess made explicit in every minute of this CD. Three extended segments revealing a whole cosmos of nuances that will make the students of the instrument aware of a depressing perspective: in fact, they might never arrive to certain heights decades of practice notwithstanding, in a classic case of “some folks got it, some folks don’t”. However, the sheer act of listening – both for them and non-reedist audiences – remains a challenge that brings numerous moments of pure excitement. In 66 minutes I didn’t hear a phrase even distantly related with someone else’s style, despite the couple’s occasional resorting to quicksilver spurts of reciprocally echoic/imitative shapes in various parts of the set. Another attractive trait is given by the general comprehensibility of the contrapuntal components, regardless of a frequent trespassing of the overacute range. Articulate connectedness kept at full throttle, pushing the boundaries of fast-paced ability well beyond the average. As always, one would say, but still quite exhilaratingly for us, the lucky receivers of those swirling parallelisms.

Copy For Your Records

Wade Matthews and Alfredo Costa Monteiro are two serious musicians who kick off their creative processes by listening attentively and realizing what’s going on around them, then – eventually – decide to release a record containing the acoustic rendering of the reasons behind that primary suggestion. In the case of Winter the pair attempted to portray a superior kind of physicality, supported by an instrumental range that encompasses synthesis, processed field recordings, amplified springs, electric motors and radio. We all have learnt over the years that Costa Monteiro is able to draw out riveting sonic kernels from theoretically non-reactive sources, paper included; the lumpy waves and emaciated ellipses generated by Matthews appear as optimal counterparts in this statement, difficult to file in absence of unquestionable reference points. Maybe a less expensive version of some of Iannis Xenakis’ mythical discharges would make for a (barely) adequate delineation of certain parts of this CD: dozens of high-strung fragments smeared by crude compulsions, the theoretical coldness deriving from whirring appliances, the incandescent ebullience of a natural irregularity. All of the above is balanced by the “softer” traits of an inexhaustible matter, a little relief given by the gradual flutter of the oscillators and by the stasis brought by several layers of droning materials. When warped voices from the ether surprise us in semi-relaxed stance, we instantly know that it’s time to go back to the initial defensive posture.

Herbal International

Aside from the funny cover (partly explicated by a mini-movie contained in the disc), 2010’s LAlienation is a good album by Sabine Ercklentz and Andrea Neumann, who integrate the origin of their instruments (trumpet and a specially designed amplified piano frame) with cunningly sharp electronics. These procedures yield results that sound organically coalesced and entirely acceptable both rhythmically and compositionally. The artists pay attention to every single constituent of the electroacoustic ambit, at times giving birth to pulsing patterns emerging from peculiar superimpositions of disparate timbral specimens (including the Bialetti espresso machine that gives the title to the first track). Mostly fending off the trivial wheezing-in-tube factor, Ercklentz privileges pop-fizz-and-clatter minute dynamism, which – magnified and duplicated in chains of changing shapes, or just enhanced by equalization – produce textures full of rich-sounding rough edges in a general sense of weightlessness (in this case, a positive trait). Neumann appears to be the one supplying the larger chunks of material for the lower region of the spectrum, besides adding welcome intrusions of springing metal and humming ominousness, but the emissions are so well jumbled that it is often infeasible – and ultimately futile – to recognize who does what. This interesting concoction of deceptively elemental structures and composite resonances releases bewitching scents little by little, and is a pleasure to listen to.

Self Release

The crafting of spick-and-span clusters and the talent in making those close intervals result as unchallengeable substance are the artistic and technical grounds upon which Nerve Cure is constructed. The Remote Viewers’ 10th release reveals the umpteenth lineup change (Adam Bohman, Caroline Kraabel and John Edwards join core members Dave Petts, Adrian Northover, Sue Lynch and Rosa Lynch-Northover). The septet is as always comfortable in terms of reed investigation – of a rather icy variety, lest one dreams too much – but this time the immediately apparent components also include the droning growls of Edwards’ bass and the coarse voice of Bohman’s bowed objects, together with a strange and uncredited presence: these aging years seem in fact to detect an electronic keyboard, perhaps a workstation, adding a couple of flaky synthetic oddities to the formula. But they might be wrong.

The absolute disengagement from sentiment through which the group tackles the angularity of the scores is at times disorienting, yet the acoustic outcome remains, as ever, wholly gratifying. The rational collocation of unanticipated pauses and anomalous accents amidst the ensemble’s trademark melodic awkwardness permits a thorough evaluation of the message in every circumstance. Tuned percussion and field recordings are employed in the building of compositional units characterized by extracurricular counterpoints, usually ending in vociferous tutti that, at various points, forced this reviewer to lower the headphone volume level in order to let the auricular membranes receive the stinging swarm more harmlessly. There’s a quantity of blithe humour behind these occasionally hair-raising pieces; sure enough, the intelligent skilfulness that they exude is a cardinal reason for the reiteration of the listening experience. Music that leaves evident traces in the memory without excess of spicy tricks, prosaic ornaments and useless protractions.

Flexion

Similarly to an old work by Cremaster – 32,41 n/m² on Absurd – Luz Azul comes lodged in a folded sandpaper sheet. And, just like the duo of Alfredo Costa Monteiro and Ruth Barberán (respectively accordion and trumpet, both augmented by unspecified objects), it is named with a palindrome, also the case of their 2004 CD Aérea on Creative Sources. The newest release is indeed very welcome: not only because I have always admired the compelling modesty of the Iberian characters but also for the background chosen, involuntarily connected with my own past. As already mentioned in other writeups, an incalculable number of afternoons and nights during the early times of this writer’s life were accompanied by the remote rolling noise of carriages and wagons. A reverberation that still rings inside the memory: whenever someone decides to use it as a sonic shade, a nostalgic sigh comes out. The pair chose an olive orchard near a railway junction as a setting for their musical performance, which remains pretty much confined within the realm of long exhalations of tones enhanced by assorted kinds of metallic vibration. The freight trains running along the instrumental activity complement – occasionally, overwhelm – the now warm, now raspy subtlety of the pitches. In the quieter sections, the whooshing mildness of that September night wraps the environment, thus adding further layers of impermanence to an evocative wholeness. One wonders if the train operators were able to take a look at what was happening in that field, probably remaining puzzled after having being testimonies to a curious nocturnal perspective.

Distant Bombs

Peter Wright decided to make available this latest outing as an interim free download, “until someone wants to issue it on a real format”. We sincerely look forward to a thorough repayment of his openhandedness, especially in virtue of the high value of this gift. Ghost Haven is a part of a trilogy of meditations about the port of Lyttleton, the artist’s residence and the theatre of a terrible earthquake that devastated the Christchurch district just over a year ago. The psychological effects of such a tragedy are hard to manage, but Wright is not a man who sits and cries. This notwithstanding, the music – recorded in the same period of Let’s Hide Under The House Until They’re Gone – stands among the most disquieting ever that the New Zealander has released. Considering that it was created before the catastrophe, it nearly reads like a bad presage now.

The title track mixes the usual cascades of droning materials and coarse distortions with elements of semi-coherent melody and – towards the end of the piece – a three-minute barrage of heavy drumming. Indistinct voices seems to have been concealed inside the mix, singing – better, howling – during the tense crescendo that catapults the whole into its own dramatic orbit (incidentally, Orbit is the name of the third part of the triptych, coming up on Install). “Even The Driftwoods Eventually Returns To Shore” is another sinister beauty, slightly quieter yet still replete with a sense of trepidation. Here, Wright utilizes lots of urban echoes and other sorts of location recordings (including birds and a faraway barking dog, who seals the envelope of evocation together with what I perceive as the washing of local sea water). The aforementioned hyper-processed voices are also heard in this context, this time under the guise of spoken snippets disaggregated by equalization, ghosts taking possession of the city for good.

A marvelously unsettling record, carrying hundreds of emotional impulses that no word can translate.

Kendra Steiner Editions

Ernesto Diaz-Infante had an uncle named Emilio, unfortunately kept in custody in a mental hygiene facility until his death in April 2011. Reportedly, the man was used by Diaz-Infante’s parents as an intimidating reference when he wouldn’t behave as they thought appropriate (“you’ll end up like Uncle Emilio!”). A bajo sexto, an electronic tanpura and a singing bowl were utilized to devise 32 short tracks for what the Californian defines as a “yoik” to the ill-fated relative (in extreme synthesis, the term - coined by Morton Feldman - stands for a transfer of the essence of a person into a composition). As far as the sonic outcome is concerned, this is definitely a brilliant record. Sagacious blending of dozens of intuitions and ceremonial absorption lie at the basis of music that makes the most of rich resonances, percussive repetition of the trance-inducing kind and linear fragments not distant from certain pages of Hans Reichel’s book. Thanks to the particularly close miking of the instruments, each subtle vibration was captured; we almost perceive the scent of wood and the sweating fingers on the buzzing strings. No effects at all, perhaps a few utensils (indeed a glance to some of Diaz-Infante’s performances on YouTube reveals that he often uses a screwdriver to create clang-and-jangle mantras or scratch out harsher types of pulse). Either via pseudo-koto twangs or spellbinding subsonic frequencies, this concise album enhances several focal points while treating us remarkably well in terms of acoustic appeal.

Tzadik

Aleph was recorded in 2008, a live concert at San Francisco’s Contemporary Jewish Museum captured by a small digital recorder set on MP3 mode instead of WAV (afterwards, the audio was refurbished by Scott Hull). The lone keyboard exploited by Riley was a Korg Triton 88 workstation, its palette confined to the spurious replica of a reed and variously hued synthetic patches. This has been enough for a couple of “critics” to throw gratuitous comments ranging from dandily illiterate to utterly disdainful: a guy on examiner.com called it “a two hour meditation for a rambling horn and a bumbling synthesizer that is a show of aged magician playing with some of his toys in the garden” (sic). So much for the ability of distinguishing a real instrument from an artificial one, not to mention the crass ignorance diffused by this variety of aspirant educators.

Speaking more seriously, one of the factors that will probably keep this recording at safe distance from a complete appreciation is the combination between the above mentioned fake-sounding timbres and the just intonation system employed for the piece. Western ears are too used to the twelve-tone temperament, which is often a way of caressing an average listener’s head with a “no-worry-it’s-all-OK” smile. To unaccustomed audiences just intonation may result as somewhat jarring; in general, what’s actually out of tune is the being who perceives it as such, though this is a topic that would require a book to discuss.

As far as how the mere musical content works, Riley is still able to bring forth endless spurts of enthralling Eastern-tinged melismas upon reiterative structures; no hints of weariness whatsoever. Look for loops, patterns and chants and you’ll find them; leave the whole unfold without excessively concentrating on the detail of what happens, and singular resonances are going to generate the sort of auricular and mental reaction that only bona fide mavericks can elicit with their work, despite physiological ups and downs. Forget the shopworn comparisons with rainbows and poppies, and the obligatory citation of In C: like it or not, this is Terry Riley’s current art. The 60s and the 70s are gone. Accept this simple truth, and move on.

Kranky

Half of The Dead Texan duo together with Adam Wiltzie (of Stars Of The Lid renown), Christina Vantzou is a film-maker based in Kansas City. She composed No.1 – her debut release – with a computer and a series of orchestral samples, which were in turn translated into genuine acoustic reflections by Minna Choi, who adapted the initial version to a septet. The record has been praised most everywhere and – if one doesn’t look to be shocked by an album – quite deservedly so. Vantzou’s sonorities move in fact along the same coordinates of the above mentioned projects (especially SOTL) with a pinch of Eno (circa Pachelbel’s reworking on Discreet Music). Cinematic inertia utilizing concordant harmonies held for long periods, in addition to shifting superimpositions of semitransparent washes which, at certain levels, create moderate conflicts between the upper partials, thus balancing hypothetical excesses of saccharides. Aside from the sensitive soul that Vantzou obviously possesses, what must be evidenced is the deeply melancholic nature of the whole: the disc was kept spinning for hours without the appearance of even a glimpse of a smile. Yet the propensity to glumness is counterpointed by the richness of the sonic tissue: intoxicant aural substances outspread and resonate, vaporized physicality and irremediable regret influencing our slow response to the surrounding events.

(Reviewer’s note: a DVD version including Vantzou’s movies plus “No.1 Remixes” has been released, but this writeup refers to the original CD)

Pogus

Long-time friend and artistic collaborator Malcolm Goldstein is the man in charge of turning Philip Corner’s scores – notated (in peculiar ways) or less – into violin expressiveness of the unadulterated kind. The five compositions comprised by this disc run a temporal gamut that goes from 1958 to 1985; they’re all comparable to the picture of someone who, all of a sudden, meets an old sage who opens his/her eyes by indicating a path and, from that instant on, nothing is the same in that being. Goldstein’s supreme command of the bowed nuances is absolutely necessary in translating the equally essential directives of the composer to the ears of a listener. It’s music that literally follows lines (the opening “Philip Corner’s Piece For Malcolm Goldstein by Elizabeth Munro”) while expanding the borders of conceptualization. Gravelly sounds on the strings and cleaner range-jumping figurations might represent the psychological ups and downs that alter our quotidian; the stretching of unsteady pitches seems to call everybody to a moment of real concentration, an infrequent occurrence under the very bad presages elicited by the current years. The only track in which Goldstein is not alone – “Gamelan Maya” – sees the presence of his comrade at the piano, accompanying the violinist with scents of Palestine (not in the geographic sense, I mean Charlemagne). Yet the mesmerizing keyboard hammering is contrasted by the asymmetry of the melodic phrasing, and – again – once can’t escape the thought that, like it or not, all of this belongs to a single experiential container.

Choose

It is with deep regret that I announce my most recent disease, the reason behind a definitive decision that should have already been taken quite a while back. Giving a really meaningful account of recordings involving the use of canned exhalations and saliva-related noises resonating in metallic conduits – whatever the source – has become an insurmountable barrier for this reviewer. In the last decade or so I have listened, initially with pleasure, to hundreds of CDs that, one way or another, have gradually conformed to a growing number of unwritten rules and aesthetic conventions. The press has been filing them under dozens of names and categories; I won’t add any. It’s not Robin Hayward’s fault, of course: in this record from a couple of years ago he did manage to make this listener perk up his ears, in search of new things to cheer for. The tuba is an interesting machine in that sense, and Hayward is definitely more intelligent than the many a wannabe I’ve had the delight to meet along the “spit-and-gurgle-inside-the-instrument” path. However, the truly gripping moments of States Of Rushing are still too few to place the disc amidst the ones whose spinning will be reiterated, which is basically the same of what usually happens with similar releases, most of them macroscopically ballyhooed by compliant groups of well-connected writers. Essentially, those flashes of involvement occur when the protagonist stays for protracted periods within insistent rhythmic capsules whose slight “human” irregularity causes some vibrational extrusion in the cranium. That ceaseless “thunk-thunk-thunk” nearly reaches a hypnotic effect, and that’s saying a lot in an area infested by the virus of everlasting tedium. But I’m too outmoded and deprived of precious time to keep struggling for words to illustrate outings where not a single pitch – a significant pitch – is emitted. Warm-and-wet air and infinitesimal fractions of upper partials resonating inside tubes – frequently in “practically inaudible” mode, even if that’s not the case here – won’t be tolerated further. This – barring prodigious efforts that one can’t even imagine at the moment – will be the final time in which you’ll read about analogous materials on Touching Extremes.

The Helen Scarsdale Agency

When all seems lost, and the faith in the sanative attributes of a drone-based album dwindles because of too many broken illusions generated by pathetic imitators, here comes good old Jim Haynes with a double LP to save the day and reset the bar at a much higher height. Divided in four parts, respectively titled “Ashes”, “Terminal”, “Half-Life” and “Cold”, The Decline Effect sounds like the incubation of an awareness of endangerment. Yet its playscript has been developed in such a way that the terminology used for the titles – which a normal person can’t help but associate to death – contrasts quite jarringly with the mind-fortifying qualities of a music that is destined to stay within ourselves for long.

The transubstantiation of concrete matter into psychologically affecting phenomena lies at the basis of Haynes’ vision, intuitions becoming certainties during extended periods of aural staring. Various levels of modification give us no chance to accurately determine the processes behind these impressive concoctions of ominous crumbling, hissing exhalations, subsurface trembling and vaporized miasmas. One realizes about the presence of liquids, everyday objects, mechanized devices and other elements that – in the composer’s plan – are just means to describe transitions. Scenes of urban bleakness gradually dissolve while forms of majestic decrepitude, condensed resonances and treated metals conjure up haunting hymns to despair. Right there you realize that this is a mere starting point for a thorough reassessment of the self, and the frequencies that appeared so threatening are now escorting the ascension to uncharted areas of the cognitive system.

Psi

Having just been officially confirmed into the role of maladjusted fault-finding specimen after hearing (and, with rare exceptions, despising) the pillaging of Meredith Monk’s superior vocal skill in the grossly hyped Monk Mix curated by DJ Spooky, I shiver in fear whenever seeing “DJ something” associated to an artist whose work I regard. Luckily, DJ Sniff (Takuro Mizuta Lippit) is not someone who decides to use a prestigious name of the experimental scene to set up a new trend, but the artistic director of STEIM since 2007.

This project, realized with a heap of old (and expensive, as correctly pointed out in the liners) Evan Parker vinyl albums, is notable for at least two essential reasons, the first being the unforced musicality that the whole exudes. Neither excessively fragmenting nor edulcorating things, Sniff is not hiding behind the screen of “making a great name’s art available to the general public in cheap fashion with the alibi of an improved connection between different creative abilities”. He decided to pursue a vision that places the large part of ep halfway through an impenetrably overwhelming minimalism and the sort of galvanic real-timeness that lets one perceive the exact details of what’s happening while getting slapped by blurs of quickly succeeding sonic flashes.

The second, and maybe most critical factor of success is the choice of not working exclusively with Parker’s reeds as a source: you can hear cutting shards of several illustrious partners scattered throughout the program. Trombones, drum kits and double basses carry the same weight of the main figure’s saxophone, and there’s even a distinct appearance by Phil Minton, alone signing the end of “Itchy Throat”. All in all, the excellent  management of the electroacoustic items – achieved via turntable, mixer and computer – highlights the composer’s cleverness more than shoe-shining the origin of his admiration, always a risk in this type of operation.

Al Maslakh

The record’s title seems to give an unsolicited answer to a hypothetical question by some kind of illiterate listener: “how do you call this stuff?”. Your reviewer gave up speaking music in depth since decades ago, utterly depressed by the mixture of ignorance and presumptuousness that a typical schmoozer offers to the counterpart. As I like to say, this is the topic about which no one knows shit yet everybody gives public speeches. The ability of enjoying sounds as they are – “good”, “bad”, “sweet”, “harsh” or whatever adjective you might wish to use – is THE foundation, not only of the mere act of listening but of living itself. It is something that teaches to respect the persons who talk without interrupting, trying to overwhelm them with our own argumentations. It is a means to get stronger in front of the adversities. Learn to really detect the various components of a piece, and the organization of life facts appear clearer in the mind (provided that the latter is not altered by certain substances). In this recording, Mazen Kerbaj (trumpet), Sharif Sehnaoui (guitar) and Raed Yassin (double bass) produce a great number of hard-to-describe sonorities that basically verge on the nasty side of things and, for the most part, are uneasily abrasive and downright stinging. They use drones, scraped surfaces, percussive gestures and motorized appliances to elicit meaningfully unseductive resonances. Sometimes they alter the timbre of the respective instruments in such a radical fashion that one just does not believe that there’s not a saxophone, or a distortion pedal in this set. But everything I heard is rational, enlivening, aggressive in a constructive way – and it IS (excellent) music to these ears, not likely to resemble anything emitted by other practitioners of the art of acoustic excoriation.

Flux

Expect no less than good-natured surprises and the occasional question mark when you read the name Frank Rothkamm. Reno is an album of flaccidly pushy electronic music composed during the 90s, entirely orchestrated on an Atari ST computer running on Cubase and connected to an array of vintage synthesizers and ancient-sounding drum machines. In essence, this is the sonic rendering of a concept – that of the “supermodern ballet” – according to which audience and performers become one thanks to the universal clock which regulates the (presumed) proportion between the rhythms of our own cosmos and the neuroses deriving from the numerous difficulties contained therein (including the impossibility of getting a work acknowledged, namely what happened to Rothkamm when he went to New York in search of record deals and/or other types of artistic glory and was instead forced to live in stressful conditions throughout the stay). The original background for this stuff has to be found in San Francisco’s Rave movement, of which the main character was a booster both as organizer and performer in the years of reference. The sounds get consistently thrown to our ugly mug in all their scientifically démodé appearance: mathematical programming, wishy-washy timbral stableness resulting in some mythical splashes of blubbery synthesis, and a smattering of retro jewels (“Graphic Equalizer”, “Dancefloor Killers” and “Jazz Hands”) that will make someone put on the red shoes and dance a peculiar kind of blues. And it’s also perfect, enjoyed via ear-clogging headphones, for terminating the verbal bullshit surrounding a pitiable train traveller.

And/OAR

It takes just a few words to explicit our impressions in front of Levitation And Breaking Points, re-released by Dale Lloyd’s And/OAR two years after the original triple 3-inch edition. Describing the mere exteroception – as always in corresponding circumstances – is an intention that ultimately results in the typical fatuousness attached to any similar attempt when one listens to uncrystallized masses of sound rich in shifts of imaginary harmonies and ethereal chromaticity. Perhaps we could do better referring to “presence” and “absence”, for these two opposites lie – here more than anywhere else in Celer’s recorded output – at the basis of the pervading sense of noetic improvement and corporeal liquefaction perceived during the protraction of the experience (needless to say, this disc is a natural nominee for the “infinite repeat” mode). The richness of psychological phenomenologies remains the most valid point of discussion for this type of outing; both Will and Dani Long worked in the ambit of music therapy, so they were probably able to predict certain effects on a listener’s involuntary cognition since the beginning. What the miserable reviewer must do in such a circumstance is, once again, stressing the need of separating who operates in this area with a background of genuine education and sentience from those who join the bandwagon without having a clue about the grandness of these issues. Celer were in search of truths while in exploration, and this record shows their absolute commitment to orbiting towards spheres that – hypothetically – any individual gifted with serious inner means and a modicum of volition can reach. Especially by remaining silent.

Z6

According to Huib Emmer – a Dutch composer I was not acquainted with until yesterday, henchman among others of Lukas Simonis who now publishes this CD on his own label – Green Desert should evoke visions of urban bleakness and sense of forsakenness. Using a miscellany of sources, a laptop and electronics, Emmer does manage to raise some degree of hell, though not ferociously as certain noise-mongers do. The representational processes mostly describe a fuzzy disarray, washes of unrecognisable fluids combining with more incisive frequencies to lead the unsuspecting headphone-wearing victim astray. Everything looks OK to that point, the music offering several levels of stimulating information to the brain and, in general, sounding rather personal. Regrettably, there are a few instances in which the whole steers very clearly to a sort of hefty industrial techno replete with cold – and ultimately insipid – square beats; even the quality of the sounds seems to diminish its order of magnitude quite decisively in those moments. It probably works better live, but these “variations” ruin an otherwise interesting record.

Faraway Press

Timo Van Luijk represents the trait d’union between the disjointed constituents of what once was the Mirror karyon, having ongoing duos both with Christoph Heemann (In Camera) and Andrew Chalk (Elodie). Don’t envisage a Mirror reunion in a three-soul incarnation, for this is asking too much. However, the goods coming from the newer tandems are not bad as a consolation, and La Lumiere Profumee – the second transcribed phase in Elodie’s chronicles – is yet another pastel-shaded intermixture of moods that incorporate Arcadian echoes, psychotropic frequencies and undersized exhibits of the most regular – and, alas, gradually disregarded – kind of human impression. The sheer nonverbal motility of playing, whatever comes out of an instrument – or a generic tool, for that matter – lies at the basis of nine delicate trips through various stages of slightly perturbed ataraxis. Leaving us to speculate about the acoustic origins – though the dust-smelling piano characterizing several episodes cannot be missed – Chalk and Van Luijk seem interested in depicting an affirmation of the continuance of life with elements of such a subtlety that one is afraid of watching them vanish in the air while the music goes. Ingenuous melodies and atonal lines depicted by a number of reed instruments mesh and lull us softly, different perspectives and planes superimposed in lethargic earnestness. The music highlights the pair’s commonsensical sensibility, picking the elusive nuances of our misconceptions to defeat the hoity-toityness disseminated by innumerable lecturers of the vacuum.

No Part Of It

In an handwritten note, Arvo Zylo (note the relation between his first name and the website’s) advises me that it took six years to complete 333. The many hours that he put in are discernible throughout the three tracks of the CD, radical sharpness subjacent to music mostly born from of jolts and compulsions, classifiable without reluctance in the orbit of semi-dignified noise. The project’s unfolding leads the listener across stages of “refuse-any-melody”, industrial-scented cadenced autism, characterized by the same pros and cons of other releases in this battleground. This means that the physiological reaction connected to the initial impact is somewhat dampened by the absence of a functional evolution, the various constituents succeeding in separated scenes rather than agreeing to a proper arrangement. Things improve over subsequent temporal transitions, a distinct opening towards more “orchestral” sonorities making the difference; we even start hearing (perhaps illusively) echoes of samples in the overall crushing. I won’t name names to forcibly compare Zylo to the usual suspects, because he does not deserve it: like it or not – and I do acknowledge several of its intriguing aspects – this record shows a strong backbone and a good degree of individuality, regardless of the cosmetic qualities.

No Business

Forgive this spurt of anti-democracy, but… wouldn’t it be possible to pass an international law that prohibits the attending of concerts to people with cold or affected by chronic coughing, either pneumonic or just nervous? Starting from the very first seconds, there are several instances in Journey – an otherwise glorious album by the violin/double bass duo of Cooke and Léandre – in which someone in the audience chooses, with surgical precision, the most tense and/or rarefied spots to sonorously showcase the content of their bronchial tubes, systematically collapsing the supernatural pressure of the moment.

This aside – and heaven knows how I hate putting great music second after behavioural deficits in a list – this performance from 2008 confirms what the ladies had already shown four years prior with Firedance on Red Toucan. In essence, the ability of keeping the flame of instant creativity burning brightly for a long time. They do it through freakish deviations and fulminating twists and turns enhanced by balanced dosages of perspicuous lunacy and liberal sensitivity. The interaction ranges from near-silence – crackles and taps in evidence, together with sighs, susurrations and “yeahs” of encouragement emitted by the players – to literally inflammatory attacks to the instruments. This album has much to teach to the disadvantaged scrapers who pretend to define themselves “musicians”: ardour, intelligence, scorching reflexes and sheer beauty of timbre are inbuilt gifts that cannot be acquired by looking intensely at a point while remaining still. If “playing with passion” does indeed mean something, there are many chances here to understand what that is. Unless you swallowed a couple of Aspirins before entering the concert site, of course.

BEAT CIRCUS – Boy From Black Mountain

An outstanding record to begin with, quite dissimilar from the previous disquieting release Dreamland on this same label (another must if you ask me). Here we observe Beat Circus’ penchant for the expansion of moods directly related to earlier eras of the American history, those in which leader Brian Carpenter’s parents and grandparents fought to survive. However, implications and hidden meanings were clearer once I became aware that the original concept behind Boy From Black Mountain is Carpenter’s attempt to depict stories through the eyes and brain of an autistic child – his son, diagnosed with the disease a few years ago, now luckily healthier following years of treatment. Let’s just say that this is a collection of compactly designed and finely orchestrated songs, in which a relatively deadpan and occasionally gravelly voice pilots a superb ensemble that looks able to execute whatever score one puts in front of them. You can find traces of bluegrass, Cajun, Irish reels and rural folk in there, Ron Caswell’s tuba and Andrew Stern’s banjo in evidence at various junctures. “The Sound And The Fury” throws in – for good measure - a Chinese reed instrument, tremolo guitar and marvelous samples of choral singing by what sounds like a group of Buddhist nuns. Shades of Steve Reich-esque strings (hats off, Jordan Voelker, Paran Amirinazari and, in other tracks, Julia Kent) inform “Nantahala”; a tender accordion characterizes the conclusive “Lullaby For Alexander”, a piece that made this writer brood over the late Lars Hollmer. A touching goodbye to the kind of juvenile incorruptibility that can’t seem to be found anymore.

Cuneiform

LED BIB – Sensible Shoes

Drummer Mark Holub is the compositional deus ex-machina behind Led Bib, whose lineup is also shaped by bassist Liran Donin, keyboardist Toby McLaren and the sax tandem of Pete Grogan and Chris Williams. Sensible Shoes is an album that requires a measure of persistence in order to obtain maximum pleasure from it. On a first listen one thinks about a classic Cuneiform offer, RIO tints in jazzy sauce with sudden harsher digressions; but there’s definitely more. The ability of seducing the ears via composite counterpoints flowing into sheer lyricism (“Water Shortage”, “Zone 4*”). The powerful dissonant riffage of “Sweet Chilli” and “Call Centre Labyrinth”, nearly grotesque stridency revealing instrumental compactness and utter disbelief in traditional values, facilitated by the lack of guitar-related commonplaces. The initial “Yes, Again” grows and immediately stops; you breathe for a second, only to be thrown in a pot bubbling with vehement pulsations and erratic changes, spiraling saxophones constituting both the melodic source and the ornamentations. A mercurial unit for sure, the quintet positively belongs among the bands to follow with interest in the label’s plentiful troops. Honest and vigorous, executing their scores with the “right” kind of zeal, still leaving room to authenticity.

Cuneiform