Ian Vine: electric guitars
These two excellent pieces consist of sliding drones generated by overlying electric guitars, lots of inner movements and conflicting partials doing the work à la Niblock, with faster alterations in the density of the contiguous frequencies. This does not mean that “objects” should necessarily translate as “the employed instruments”, although the numbers in the titles correspond exactly to that. In fact, Vine clearly informs that his recent output is mostly founded on “sequences of events or objects”, from which we can easily get the picture: everything occurring therein can be regarded as such, whatever the source.
It’s not a problem of definition anyway. The crux of the biscuit is to be found in the vibrations induced by the gradational morphing of the “clustered object”, if the composer pardons the expression. They belong to the category of medicine that is essential to smother the straining features of life in their attempt to prevail inside an overly naive being. I don’t know if Vine did some preliminary research in terms of timbres to use, or if the audible result is a try-and-fail-then-finally-succeed kind of venture. The fact is that both “Forty” and “Forty-Five” possess assuasive attributes in spite of the large percentages of dissonant cloudiness characterizing each track’s evolution.
Perhaps it’s the very massiveness of the whole that cancels the potential cruelty of the clashing harmonics to the ears (mine, at least). Even trying to individuate “directions” for the superimposed lines is a prohibitive task, for the music transmits a sense of “focused floating” more than anything else. Basically, the act of inquiring too eagerly about what happens is an error that must be avoided. It doesn’t matter how or where; what ultimately counts is the “untangle the innermost knots” factor. This alone should warrant a higher degree of attention to what this gentleman does, operating in the field where centered rationalism and delivery from invisible pain try to do business together.
MASSIMO RICCI. TOUCHING EXTREMES. 