Quatre Têtes – Figuren

I won’t bore you with another story of my tough day tonight. You know how it goes by now… Just tomorrow to get through and then I have four days off, three of which will be spent at the Unnamed Music festival in London and Leeds. Sorry if I keep mentioning the festival, but it deserves my support and yours. Say hi if you come along. Today then I listened to another release on the Creative Sources label (I am determined to listen to each one properly and write something on it!) Actually it wasn’t easy to listen more than once to today’s disc. I really didn’t enjoy it much. The CD in question is a new release by an all female quartet from (I think) Switzerland named (really rather badly) Quatre Têtes. Their album of ten shortish tracks is called Figuren.
I’m not actually sure how to describe the music they play, but Quatre Têtes are mad eup of two pianists Gabriela Friedli and Claudia Ulla Binderand two wind instrumentalists, Susann Wehrli (flutes and melodica) and Priska Walss (trombone and alphorn) In places their music is definitely very jazzy. There are several patches of melody to be heard, and a tendency for different instruments to come to the fore and almost solo on different tracks. Elsewhere it has a new music feel to it though, almost a kind of loosely played Earle Brown. It is certainly improvised, as in places it meanders slowly all over the place. It is busy, but somehow it doesn’t quite have the spark and energy of good old-school improv. It actually feels a really polite recording, with no aggression and no real surprises.
I have to be honest, I just don’t like this CD at all, but I am really struggling to pin down exactly why. It just has a certain sound to it, a mixture of groaning (often farting) wind instruments and quite annoyingly persistent piano. It spends a lot of time developing ideas that just don’t interest me much, little loops of repeated melody from one of the group mixed with rhythmic patterns from elsewhere and the odd dissonant moment thrown in by one of the others. I hate being so negative about music but I have to be honest, this CD bored me to tears. Maybe to others with completely different expectations of what they want from a quartet of this type Figuren is a good record. I’m obviously only voicing one opinion but there was very little here that held my attention. Richard Pinnell (The Watchful Ear)

Susann Wehrli – flutes, melodica
Priska Walss – trombone, alphorn
Claudia Ulla Binder – piano
Gabriela Friedli – piano

2057

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cottrell/findlay/hunter

A brand new double-release from Concrete Moniker available now

A delicious double-dose of immersive soundscape, intimate improvisation and a constant counterpoint of clicks and scrapes, drones and harmonics.

Four new original free improv recordings from three of Manchesters finest free-sound improvisers, plus a complimentary set of incredible remixes from the Moniker family – alexis, The Red Box, Rodrigo Constanzo and Tullis Rennie.

Eight track double release available to download now

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Jeff Gburek : Remote Provinces

This CD “remote provinces“, composed of materials recorded in Germany, Belgium, and Poland, mixed in with my own prepared guitar and signal processors, requires with each listening
a process of interpretation. They are not documentaries nor are they pure: I cannot imagine as a naturalist that one edits out impurity. I cannot imagine that as critic of naturalism one edits out impurities. So in some sense it is a work that is in argument with formalist phonography yet it accepts the basic premise which I call “seeding across time“. My work is a bit like what one might call “wild-scaping“—allowing urban decay to express itself unchecked while nature takes over. It is in this regard I include “technical breakdowns“: wrinkles to remain in the table-cloth, stains on the tie or runs in one`s stockings to show through. Some sounds are designed to enter the “center“ of ego-consciousness, while others seem peripheral. And yet I have invested equal energy in these “remote“ fringes and I like to imagine the music evolves with your environment and rides on a continuum of sound that surpasses every rendering and is renewed with each listening. The “remote provinces“ are all around us. They may be places of exile but also places of solitude, introspection and transcendance but they are nevertheless characterized by ruptures and coincidences of attention. Each of us is a remote province integrating and disintegrating, emerging from and immersed in empire. I have tried to build in sound a sense of worlds inside worlds living, at the occasional expense of transparency, transparently.

2056

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Tullis Rennie : BCN_ep

with SST, Ewey and Bella Ford

New collaborations and new surroundings have broadened the sound-scope of Concrete Moniker’s resident abstract electronocist. Recording sessions with three astounding vocalists plus an ongoing Spanish hiatus have resulted in a brand new E.P. which strays in new, unexpected directions.

Discover haunting melodies, glimmering textures, bass swells, stuttering beats and a whispering Antipodean MC…

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Birgit Ulher / Heiner Metzger : Blinzeln

One is, as always, attempting to deconstruct the normal sounds of a trumpet; the other works on something called “soundtable”, which says everything and nothing, given that the noises that he conjures up range from bowed wood and metal to zing ’n’ sting sharpness and close-microphone scrubbing and scratching of (maybe) sandpaper, or plain paper, or (insert your object here). The combination is functional, despite the fact that we’ve already wandered through these lands time and again: Ulher’s flapping, hissing, sucking, gentle tooting in her stimulation of zillions of irregular upper partials do have repercussions on the listener’s part of the brain that’s more oriented to irony, whereas the extreme concreteness of Metzger’s manipulations add a touch of thickness to the overall sonic tissue. While the record is nicely conceived and completely pleasurable, it also shows that the well of expressive means for this kind of improvisation is not bottomless. A good release sounding like another hundred of similar efforts, the whole masterfully executed but – at this junction in history – hardly groundbreaking.
Massimo Ricci (Temporry Fault)

2055

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[ch`os] – Flex Frame

This piece comprises 7 tracks with heavily processed digital signals from prerecorded analog sound sources. Sound and space meet in a musical offering most suitable for demanding listeners.

Themes evoked range from experiments in communication,indeterminate operations and the aesthetic value of randomness. Also present are the ideas of interference of the listener’s expectation, disturbances and problems when conveying thoughts, expressing feelings or standing for his beliefs.

Chance and geometric disposition of sound sources are most vivid, creating an apparent chaotic build up of atmospheres.

It really is up to all of us as listeners to question the rough surface and find the beauty hidden in the most complex patterns. Once the texture is resolved, peace and non thoughts will ensue.

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ATMEN IM ATOM – ATOM HEART NOISE III

The art work for this is an A4 photocopied sheet wrapped around a CDR. If you folded the sheet so as to insert it in a jewel case then the cover would be the wrong way around. Doris Boeker gets the credit for this, the text also has the caution that the CDr contains extreme Frequencies and unexpected Dynamic Processes. Well it (Track 1) starts in the bass – with a bubbling sounds (custard?) then slowly and predictably moves up the spectrum. Track two is whistles and hisses and crashes with reverb – as opposed to rhubarb. The other tracks continue in this industrial vein – with the occasional high pitched noises but never more than 22khz (which would be something?) Not that its particularly relevant but the worst/best thing on Audio CDs is fairly fixed high DC offsets – which can in some cases burn out speakers. (jliat)

FDW Vital Weekly 679

2054

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Guillaume Viltard – Running Away

contrebasse solo

I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
(…)
For us there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.
T.S. Eliot — Four Quartets

Guillaume Viltard est né en 1975 en Côte d’Ivoire, c’est un grand gars qui habite Londres et qui joue de la contrebasse à sa façon et nous on aime beaucoup ça, c’est déjà ça … (à suivre)

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cover Front
cover in 1
cover in 2

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N’oubliez pas que vous pouvez aussi
acheter l’objet et/ou faire un don

copyleft under art libre license

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V/A : FEEDING THE TRANSMITTER

While listening to music I try to avoid doing too many other things, but then I am not looking at the cover all the time. So it happened that I was listening to this compilation while eating and thinking at one point: all the time this is playing this has been nice electronic music. Lots of crackling, micro techno ambient glitch or whatever you could call this lot of modern electronica, but then it also dawned on me that I never wanted to get because a particular track stirred my interest that much that I wanted to know the name of the creator. Is that odd? Perhaps not. Perhaps its not easy to surprise this listener that much anymore, and perhaps its a certain fatigue. On a track by one Mats Twunky sounded out of place, with its slightly distorted ambient drone, which sounded odd, not bad. Included otherwise are Micheal Santos, Ocp, Maps And Diagrams, Poborsk, Autistici, Pleq Ninestein, Dy, Sinusodial and others. Some of these names you may recognize from releases on 12K, Static
Caravan, Audiobulb or Baskaru, which means this is not just a compilation of second rate copycats that didn’t get anywhere. This is surely one fine compilation with no stand out pieces, but then also no pieces that let the listener down. (FdW)

Vital Weekly 684

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Tension Co. : Vacaciones Intrauterinas

Dúo electrónico afincado en Sevilla, compuesto por Miriam Blanch y José Ma Pérez-Flor. Sus métodos compositivos son siempre digitales, aunque la mayoría de las veces parten de fuentes sonoras externas, como grabaciones de campo de muy diversa procedencia.

La música de Tension Co., en clave de cold noise con ciertos regustos psicodélicos de la vieja escuela industrial, es oscura y de intensidad creciente.

Como su propio nombre indica, sus aventuras sonoras transitan por nuevos caminos de tensión narrativa, creando hipnóticas y personales atmósferas. Capas de sonido que se van solapando hasta conseguir densos collages expresionistas que sitúan al oyente en un extraño paraje imaginario.

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João Lucas : abstract mechanics

The choreography “It was a very abstract thing” arose from the will to challenge the strange world of abstraction – whatever that may be, or whatever it is we may want to abstract – restraining the drive of wanting to say something, in order to plunge into an expressive abnegation of sorts. Building on the assumption that movement itself contains ideas, we sought to create a language whose meanings and significants only last for the duration of the moment in which they are created. We began at the “starting line” and progressed as a flux that must come from behind in order to move forward, in search of movements that reveal themselves as thoughts, but not allowing themselves to be fully understood, but giving the piece a narrative feeling. The music, as “abstract matter”, shapes this feeling and tosses it into continuity, acting upon this created reality as a transfiguring spirit that opens and guides the various possibilities of interpretation, in the very moment of building the present. This unspoken speech has the pretension of being beautiful because all formality must chase beauty and all that exists just for a moment has the delicacy of its own transience.

João Lucas, piano, accordion, electronics; Miguel Mira, cello; Thiago Lucas, voice.

Andresa Soares, May 2009

2053

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simon whetham : ratcha anachak thai

.a rushed visit to Thailand to visit friends while they live in Bangkok led me to visit a small Mon village on the River Kwai, where some of the dwellings are built on metal pontoons which float on the river. The constant movement is both lulling and unsettling.

I also spent some time on the remote island of Ko Kradan, off the South West coast of the mainland, which is still recovering from damage caused by the tsunami. A small jungle surrounded by golden beaches, it could be seen as paradise, but the inhabitants of the island – the mosquitoes, sea urchins, sand wasps, crabs and medusa – they let you know who the island really belongs to…

Simon Whetham, March 2009

Published by Touch Music [MCPS]

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TOMASZ BEDNARCZYK : LET’S MAKE BETTER MISTAKES TOMORROW

This is the third album by Tomasz Bednarczyk, following ‘Summer Feelings’ (see Vital Weekly 563) and ‘Painting Sky Together’ (see Vital Weekly 664) and still the piano, but also the guitar are his main chooses of instruments to process. Play and process, play and process. The feeling that I already had with ‘Painting Sky Together’ is the same feeling I have here. This is surely great music, very moody, very textured, crisp and clear from the world of microsound, but but but, it sounds so similar to the previous releases, and also to lots of other works in that direction. So that makes this release nice, but I wonder: for whom?

FDW Vital Weekly 683

2052

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Maria Grigoryeva : Transfer to Unknown

(ca279) (June 24, 2009)

….the destination is vague….
this transfer makes you walk a thousand kilometers’ long way…
you go through thousand tunnels of your own thoughts and ideas…most of which are lost on the halfway, the rest keep following you for the rest of your life..
life is the endless transfer .. from one point to another one …. through one state to another … cast by various ideas FIX …sometimes this roam fatigues you … you stop for a short while … abruptly, new challenging ideas spring out as if out of nowhere … and force you into transfer again…
life is a train … solely yours … having no conductor … no companions … no operator … the stops are announced by your inner voice … and the route is utterly intuitive … the roam is geographical … and it is emotional … you wander from one idea to another one … searching for harmony … until you once realize that the whole process is the harmony, whatever hard or deliberately easy it is … the transfer through life circumstances as it is – IS the harmony you day after day strive for … however, years will pass by until you understand this … years of search for some final point … where there’s nothing but another temporary suspension…
with no fear I face the suspense … that’s what keeps me moving on …

Maria Grigoryeva
[22 years old , St-Petersburg, Russia]

Student of two departments in State Conesrvatory – violin and composition.
Maria is winner of several competitions: International competition for young musicians, organized by association “Art and Pedagogic of 21 century” (1 prize, violin, Finland), Competition of Shostakovich (3-rd prize, composition, Russia. She is author of symphony, quartets, solo-pieces for different instruments, different ensembles, and a lot of music for percussion), Winner of harp society (as harp-composer), International Competition of chamber music of Rubinstein (3-rd prize, Moscow).
Is an active musician. Had concerts in Russia, Norway, Sweden, Holland, Finland, Austria, Germany. Participated in different festivals: Shubertiade (Austria), Orlando Festival (Holland), Barent’s Days (Norway), Sound Ways (Russia), Fin de Siecle (Russia), Week of Conservatory (Russia). Has been studying in summer Academies in Germany and Holland.
Now is art-director, violinist and composer of her own ensemble . It’s the one ensemble of contemporary music in St-Petersburg, and even there are no such analogs in hole Russia. had recitals in Philharmonia of St-Petersburg and in different other halls. Repertoire is huge, but the main idea is to create ensemble for performing of her own music. had participated in different Festivals of contemporary music around Russia.
Also has a lot of projects. The main idea is synthesis of arts. Now is working for ballet with her electronic music. Maria is playing electric violin, also practicing drums by herself.
Co-operates with many Petersburg musicians, DJs, dancers, video-artists. Works in directions: from classics to electro-acoustics, ambient, a chill-out, minimalism, minimal-techno, techno, jazz, avantgarde, film music, theatre, plastic theatre, performance.

Contact:
http://www.myspace.com/grigoryeva
http://www.lastfm.ru/music/Maria+Grigoryeva
http://mini-orchestra.blogspot.com

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Matt Shoemaker : Erosion of the Analogous Eye

The Helen Scarsdale Agency continues their ongoing excellence with their release “Erosion of the Analogous Eye,” by Matt Shoemaker. With past titles including artists such as Omit, BJ Nilsen, Stilluppsteypa et al, Scarsdale is a label that can be counted on for consistency and taste. Nothing changes that track record here with their release of Shoemaker’s latest.

Again, drone seems to be a dominant idiom these days, and there are varying grades of the, well, let’s face it, the genre. The one-sheet mentions some gnarly contraptions: Slinkies strung from the ceiling to create reverb, complex (I read singular) wiring of analog synths…no doubt he emphasizes process. However, the results are mesmerizing and captivate that eternal objective of drone: intuiting the eternal itself.

Unlike other lesser drones, Shoemaker employs subtle pops and coarse textures which curiously do not detract from his largely organic (or are they?) monumental swells and shrink-dripping contractions. The music swirls ahead with cosmic velocity only to be called back to more terrestrial abodes by Earthly chimes and magnetic mineral attractions. Indeed, it’s the rising and falling which gives this music its organic shape, ringing true to experience. 9/10 – P. Somniferum (16 June, 2009)

2051

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Schindler / Holzbauer / Lillmeyer : rot

UDO SCHINDLER, free player of the soprano saxophone and bass clarinet in Wörthsee (Upper Bavaria) – joined here by Munich cellist MARGARITA HOLZBAUER and the Munich incomer, guitarist HARALD LILLMEYER, both of them crossover daredevils firm in the depths of newest and still nameless music – doesn’t let himself be stopped by anyone when his city lights have turned red: ROT (cs151). The three met through playing in the Munich Instant Orchestra. Lillmeyer is the best-known among them having interpreted Scelsi or Riehm, guested with Ensemble Recherche and played with the electric-guitar-quintet Go Guitars. As far as extended techniques are concerned his partners are in no way behind him, which makes this suite of 15 improvisations scratch the guardrails of tonality with a bruitist and microtonal gusto which mellows the distinctions between acoustic and electric sounds generated by Lillmeyer, and even blurs those of the instrumental voices. Whatever the fingers might tickle or the mouth may bubble, what lips may breathe, what the cello may bow or the plectrum scratch, can only be found out during concentrated listening. Yet right at the next moment, at the next breath, contrasts bubble up only to get right back into the river of sound, which the three impassioned wrong-way drivers always take against the current. Once a cello sounds solidly full-bodied it begins to fray at its fringes, once the music sounds sustained and soft the electronics scream its poison in or corrode a yawning hole inside the boom minimalist soundscape, having macro and micro voltages alternately hum along, sizzle or fly sparks. Into jagged, scabby or laboriously smoothed-down sounds the estranged guitar enflames stinging or indefinably rustling sounds, which turn out to be the sigh of the cello, soon as the guitar surprisingly begins. Much is deceptive east of the ROT and you’re listening unauthorized so to say and at your own risk. Bad Alchemy (Rigobert Dittmann)

Udo Schindler – soprano saxophone, bassclarinet
Margarita Holzbauer – cello
Harald Lillmeyer – electric guitar

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richard chartier : untitled (angle.1)

Untitled (angle.1) is a stereo composition based on the eight-channel installation Untitled.

First exhibited February 11 – March 13, 2009 at the Art Gallery of the University of Maryland (USA), Untitled is the unique first collaborative project between visual artist Linn Meyers and sound artist Richard Chartier, in an installation where optical and sonic patterns intersect. With an architectural transformation of the space, two fifteen foot long by eight foot high walls meet in an enfolding chevron, creating both a sound chamber and a drawing surface. The swirling pale lines and implied forms of Meyers’ delicate ink drawing, made directly on the surface of the walls, fuse together with the sound piece by Chartier, juxtaposing the organic and the digital into unified sensorial space. With eight audio transducers applied directly to the back surface of the walls, Chartier’s stark composition modulates and transfers through the surfaces, echoing the seeping ink and visually vibrating and reverberating patterns. The extended separated audio channels loop in and out of sync over an eight hour period creating new sonic variations.

format: cd
release date: may 09

tracks:
01. untitled (angle.1) | 36:48
limited edition: 300

2049

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Dave and Ardai : Recovery Room

Longtime collaborators David Fodel (Denver, US) and Ardai (Seattle, US) recorded this five-stage suite in a single day, captured live to disc with minimal edits to the final product on display. Analog ambience and digital calm are the two key factors here, but there are occasional moments of discord within these majestic meditations. With sonorities suggesting a journey on land if not also over sea, the collection’s somewhat claustrophobic title might be slightly misleading…but anyone in need of recuperation time would be well

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Giampaolo Verga : Fadensonnen

Giampaolo Verga – an Italian composer who is also actively involved in the encouragement of artistic creativity during the recovery processes of psychically disadvantaged persons – seems to be genuinely aware of the value of silence. With violin, voice and electronics he reveals what his mind is made of, meditating with semi-closed eyes at the farthest fringes of audibility, utilizing indistinct radiations, feeble reverberations and also acute frequencies to concoct electroacoustic settings that seize our concentration, often veritably enthralling in their mixture of profundity and legitimacy.
The rarefaction of the materials, the whispered straining of the sources, the timorous comparison between voices that we imagine deriving from lamenting ghosts and elongated percolations of frail instrumental sketches are just blurred suggestions of the essential traits of something that’s both unmistakably perceptible and manifestly indefinable, glimpses of silent commitment looking for liquids in serious acousmatic drought. With my windows open in a peaceful afternoon, remote urban presences and ever-singing birds making themselves heard from long distance, Fadensonnen sounds just perfect, at least until the sudden breakup of the final “Limbisch, Limbisch”, a startling – but not less interesting – departure from the general subject.
As opposed to certain Mediterranean tormentors who would like us to walk through interminable corridors of vacuous blessedness hiding bestial deficiency, this man discloses the hand and shows a few coins in the palm. It’s all he has, yet those little riches command respect, and could constitute the opening deposit for a future of insightful observations and, hopefully, significant intuitions.
Massimo Ricci (Brain Dead Eternity)

2048

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STONED ON GOLD : GOT-GET HOT-HEAD

collection of spatial experimentations using minimal drone and vocal re-renderings. extraterrestrial campfire field recordings.

TRACKLISTING:
1. bop
2. ant tunnel war-fare
3. silver maria
4. too thick a smog to see clearly
5. stone flowers did talking
6. puddle puddle
7. seven four rain
8. dark lull
9. how kind, a crown
10. bypassers
11. a red cloud

On April 19, 1943, Dr. Albert Hofmann intentionally ingested 250 µg of LSD, which he hypothesized would be at most a threshold level dose, based on his research on other ergot alkaloids. Surprisingly, the substance showed a potency with a magnitude above almost any other substance known at the time, amounting to a much heavier dose than typically given in modern therapeutic use. After ingesting the substance Hofmann found himself struggling to speak intelligibly and asked his laboratory assistant, who knew of the self-experiment, to escort him home on his bicycle, since wartime restrictions made automobiles unavailable. On the bicycle ride home, Hofmann’s condition became more severe and in his journal he stated that everything in his field of vision wavered and was distorted, as if seen in a curved mirror. Hofmann also stated that while riding on the bicycle, he had the sensation of being stationary, unable to move from where he was, despite the fact that he was moving very rapidly. Once Hofmann arrived home, he summoned a doctor and asked his neighbor for milk, believing it might help relieve the symptoms. Hofmann wrote that despite his delirious and bewildered condition, he was able to choose milk as a nonspecific antidote for poisoning.
Upon arriving the attending doctor could find no abnormal physical symptoms other than extremely dilated pupils. After spending several hours terrified that his body had been possessed by a demon, that his next door neighbor was a witch, and that his furniture was threatening him, Dr. Hofmann feared he had become completely insane. In his journal Hofmann said that the doctor saw no reason to prescribe medication and instead sent him to his bed. At this time Hofmann said that the feelings of fear had started to give way to feelings of good fortune and gratitude, and that he was now enjoying the colors and plays of shapes that persisted behind his closed eyes. Hofmann mentions seeing “fantastic images” surging past him, alternating and opening and closing themselves into circles and spirals and finally exploding into colored fountains and then rearranging themselves in a constant flux. Hofmann mentions that during the condition every acoustic perception, such as the sound of a passing automobile, was transformed into optical perceptions. Eventually Hofmann slept and upon awakening the next morning felt refreshed and clearheaded, though somewhat physically tired. He also stated that he had a sensation of well being and renewed life and that his breakfast tasted unusually delicious. Upon walking in his garden he remarked that all of his senses were “vibrating in a condition of highest sensitivity, which then persisted for the entire day”.

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Dropout

The essential nature of music itself, beautifully prepared and arranged as a piece of sublime and subtle ambient. Tremendous aural experience, leading to the realm of inconscient and dim acoustic recollections and perceptions.

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Carl Maguire Floriculture : Sided Silver Solid

Sided Silver Solid is keyboardist/composer Carl Maguire’s Firehouse 12 debut and the second release from his longstanding band, Floriculture, which has performed his sophisticated compositions around New York since 2001. It is also the first recording to feature the band’s expanded line-up featuring new music violist Stephanie Griffin and veteran multi-instrumentalist Oscar Noriega. Critics called the band’s previous release, Floriculture (Between the Lines), “one of the true modern jazz surprises of 2006″ (Glenn Astarita, ejazznews.com) and “as exciting a debut release as any in the last few years” (The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings, Eighth Edition). “Floriculture most definitely exudes the mark of an extremely confident composer in Carl Maguire, who has a deep feel for the freedom that jazz allows,” wrote AllAboutJazz.com’s Budd Koppman. “His bandmates obviously enjoy bringing his music to life, and I thoroughly enjoyed taking the trip with them.

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Thanos Chrysakis, James O’ Sullivan, Dario Bernal-Villegas, Oli Mayne, Jerry Wigens : Instant-Cascade-Distant

The continuous presence of the guitar creates the main axis for these improvisations that happened between 2007-2008. Different sound sources, from electronic sounds to the clarinet, and prepared piano interchange roles, swarm around and together with the guitar creating sonic and harmonic fields that oscillate between the spectral and the gestural.

2047

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C.McFall & B.Fleury-Steiner – the dirty and the clean

my work is a process of combining field recordings made on a dreary
Sunday morning in the poorest sections of inner city Wilmington,
Delaware–essentially these recordings were of empty spaces of wind
moving through tight graffiti covered alley ways and rows of
government housing located on the outer fringe of the city–the
recordings primarily consist of a sudden clatter of debris, strange
chiming noises but mostly a stretch of ghostly silences. I combined
these recordings with processed electric guitar and electric mbira.
everything was recorded live in the studio to create a series of
textural works–this process of creating a musical environment I
intended throughout to be a kind of reclaiming of what lay beneath the
taken-for-granted, indeed, “dirty” city underbelly. that is, I wanted
to bring out the beauty in all landscapes and natural phenomenon
(i.e., wind), however, disguised and dirtied they may be by government
neglect and public indifference to longstanding segregation….

[ Ben Fleury-Steiner ]

I’ve really enjoyed listening to Ben Steiner’s compositions. They’re wonderfully layered in depth and exhibit an exqusite density that comes across in a pristine way, one of which that really captivates my ears. Last summer I began talking with Ben about the possibility of collaborating and things began to fall into place really quickly, which was great. At the time we were also talking about the cities we live in and about the variety of sounds we come across as a result. To me these works represent the artistic culmination of treated sound extracts of the urban display. They exemplify a hybrid of the urban experince rendered through sound, built and broken, the dirty and the clean…

[ Christopher McFall ]

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Guionnet / Rodrigues / Rodrigues / Murayama : Noite

Bizarrely, it seems that improvising in presence of metropolitan-tinged sonic circumstances can cause factors such as mental strain and edginess to be taken out of the equation, perhaps due to a strange counter-reaction: the noise of a neighbouring street, which ideally should not correspond to a practical background for playing, regularly inspires introspective examinations of space and shapes to certain breeds of musicians. This quartet, whose instrumentation comprises alto sax, viola, cello and percussion, seizes the shadows of a nocturnal view in a neighbourhood by superimposing a collective being to that particular scenario, the outcome captured in an album where active listening is required more than ever.

Both tracks start with the above mentioned inner-city reverberations, as to set the definite context from the beginning. Evidently, the distant air currents generated by the passing vehicles – and the silences between – represent a major inspiration for the players, all of them tending to circumspection and limited motion with just a slight raspy edge in the infrequent percussive implications of the improvisations. The instruments appear in near-spirit, singularly or in different combinations, seldom emerging as a true ensemble. In that sense, a magnificent if too short droning section materializes in the first few minutes of the initial track “Story Board” in one of the record’s most emotionally charged moments, and another – dissonant, yet utterly breathtaking – towards the very end of the disc. Only rarely their voice needs to cry to be heard and, when that occurs, it’s via a series of rapid signals, without a real necessity of “affirmation of personality”. Essentially, the artists succeed in camouflaging themselves in darkness, as marvellously demonstrated by the whispered motionlessness characterizing a long part of “Drama-Like” which starts around the 12th minute.

Throughout Noite we become aware of close relationships and compatibilities springing from the attraction between opposites: instrumental and human, sound and silence, full notes and frail overtones. It takes special ears to individuate the peripheral connections and the invisible-yet-efficient mechanism that allows these artist to relinquish individuality in favour of a hazy picture of rigorousness. Once the mood is established and everything but the nutritious quintessence of this music has been erased from the mind, the first lights of a new day – typically a symbol of recovery after sleeplessness and apprehension – suddenly look undesirable.

Touchin Extremes

Jean-Luc Guionnet – alto saxophone
Ernesto Rodrigues – viola
Guilherme Rodrigues – cello
Seijiro Murayama – percussion

2046

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