How Many Free Improvisers Can You Fit on the Head of a Pin?

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

Diatribes walks a unique path, between European free improvisation and microsonic experimentation. The duo of D’incise and Cyril Bondi between them are credited, on Complaintes de Marée Basse, with playing laptop, objects, snare drums, bow, cymbals, gramophone, drums, percussions, bow, cymbals, as well as “various instruments.” Somehow, despite that plethora of material, they manage to bring a third player into the mix, Abdul Moimême (equally equipped: “two prepared guitars, metalic objects, springs, cymbals, metronome”), and still sound subdued, remote, even tiny at times, all that noisy detail distilled to the point of being nearly silent. Exactly how many free improvisers can you fit on the head of a pin? Perhaps the answer is three. The first track, “Pavillon Noir,” is by far the most hectic of the batch, and once the album proceeds past it, all the banging and clanking and scraping gets ratcheted down to the point where it sounds like field recordings of a particularly busy old furnace, especially on “Voile et Vapeur,” in which the interplay is at once bleak and fanciful (MP3).

[audio:http://www.dincise.net/insub/%5Binsubcd02%5Ddiatribes_abdul_moimeme-04-voile_et_vapeur.mp3|titles=”Voile et Vapeur”|artists=Diatribes & Abdul Moimême]

Get the full release and more details at insubordinations.net. It was released in December 2010.

String-Based Drone-in-Progress (MP3)

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

Drones may strike at the heart of music as we traditionally know it: threatening the notoriety of melody, putting unheard of weight on our expectations for harmony, creating a sense of rhythm that is somehow entirely devoid of a percussive impulse. And yet traditional instrumentation is often one of the most rewarding places to experience a drone. Cellos in particular have made headway, thanks to digital processing. The ebow long ago gave the guitar access to a kind of perpetual emanation. Numerous recent experiments in slowed sound have explored the angelic hidden in everyday pop. Monolyth and Cobalt, on its recent La température du feuillage entre deux saisons, has a track that uses the string quartet as a starting point (MP3).

[audio:http://www.archive.org/download/fbl011MonolythAndCobalt-LaTempratureDuFeuillageEntreDeuxSaisons/04StringsQuartet.mp3|titles=”Strings Quartet”|artists=Monolyth and Cobalt]

The track, titled “Strings Quartet,” is less a drone than a drone-in-progress, a drone-in-the-making. It’s all carefully defined string parts, enticing in their simplicity, slowly overlapping, slowing ceasing to be individual, slowly creating a singular drone, but also, in time, being either supplanted by or digitally transformed into a far more artificial tone. But what makes it special is how the classical sense of form is never dispensed with, only enacted with increasingly unfamiliar sounds, either hyperreal, in the form of these exceedingly minimalist strings, or synthetic, in the form of unidentifiable source material (either computer-generated, or modified by effects).

More on the work at feedbacklooplabel.blogspot.com. More on Monolyth and Cobalt (which is, despite the apparent plural, one person: French musician Mathias Van Eecloo) at monolyth-cobalt.com.

“Suspended Memory” (MP3)

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

All six tracks on Suspended Memory by Darren Harper are worth spending time with, but the first of them, “Crystal Ships,” is especially rewarding if lingered on. In many ways, the album’s title serves as an even better one for this specific track: glistening marimba-like sounds suggest a childhood toy, and Harper exaggerates the fragility with glitchy stutters and twitchy back’n’forth edits, the end result resembling a thought rising up from distant depths.

 

Rather than use that shifting fractured effluence as a backdrop, Harper charges it with the purpose and responsibility of the foreground. In time, various tiny elements come to circle each other: the marimba sound, vapor trails of activity, hushed rhythms, a rising current of percussive textures. It’s a wonderful thing: sharp as a shard as glass, yet gentle as a breeze.

More on Harper, who also goes by Mukti, at darrenjh.blogspot.com, where he explains the Suspended Memory album is dedicated to a friend and her son who passed away this past November, and at metameme.org. He lives in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado.

“A Depressing Little Ditty for Piano and Cello” (MP3)

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

The electronically enabled cellist Ted Laderas recently posted a brief (three-minute) recording of an original composition that makes people who love his music hope he personally has a dreadful year. That’s intended entirely in jest, but it’s stated in light of the comment that accompanied the piece, titled “A Savage Exposition,” at his 15people.net website. He wrote: “I have been feeling a little depressed about my art as of late, so here’s a depressing little ditty for piano and cello.”

 

It’s a gem of a piece: compact, tight, classically refined, illuminated from within. The cello on “Savage Exhibition” has less of the artfully claustrophobic gaseous-effect shoegazer aura that is characteristic of Laderas’ work. Here he pairs the rhythmic cello with a simple piano line, one that is equal parts percussive and melodic. Together in combination, they suggest one of Philip Glass’ early chamber pieces intended for a dance performance. The sense of compactness comes from its limited motion, from the way it seems to move in place.

More on Laderas (for whose album Magnifications on the Luvsound label I wrote the liner notes) at 15people.net and soundcloud.com/ooray, “Oo-Ray” being Laderas’ name for his digitally enhanced cello work.

Past Week at Twitter.com/Disquiet

/ By Marc Weidenbaum
  • Re-read Jasia Reichardt's Computer in Art for like 10th time. Slim 1971 book about computer graphics but with obvious musical application. #
  • Obituary for Egyptian artist/musician Ahmed Basiony (1978-2011) with partial list of exhibits: http://j.mp/fjAyvg via @africancolours #jan25 #
  • Morning sounds: cars, hard drive/fan, no birds, no planes, no bus; fridge asleep, like everyone else. #
  • It's a relief when you compare a musician's work positively to Depeche Mode's and said musician doesn't want to kill you. #
  • Malcolm Gladwell sets out to prove ideas by yoking together disconnected anecdotes. He must see Egypt as an anecdote that doesn't fit. #
  • "@timprebble: thoroughly enjoyed stuck/skipping CD in bookstore just now – went on for 10min – perfect soundtrack" #eartwit #glitch #chance #
  • "@LongplayerNow: Longplayer has been playing for 11 years 34 days 11 hours 57 minutes. http://j.mp/f6JLkY Sounding beautiful right now." #
  • Genius: Steve Reich's "Clapping Music" as performed by Lee Marvin and (mostly) Angie Dickinson: http://youtu.be/BY4bL_bO8sA via @pheezy #
  • Jon Bentley's Programming Pearls remix: abridged to one sentence from each of its 15 chapters http://j.mp/ghel1P by YubNub's @JonathanAquino #
  • Is there a Firefox extension that will give me a mild but noticeable electric shock when I have more than 20 tabs open at once? #
  • "@melchoir: Tyondai Braxton is gone right? idk if they'll sound as good" Likely won't. If it's just snarky mathrock I'll bail. [Re: Battles] #
  • I need to remind myself that in most cases @[whoever] isn't tweeting too much; to the contrary, I may be reading too closely. #
  • Battles: "new music coming soon." That's enough good news to get me through a hectic day: http://j.mp/eLJGZB #
  • Alternate memorial page for slain Egyptian musician Ahmed Basiony (1978-2011), with photos from Cairo protests: http://j.mp/h9xpx9 #
  • NB to self: Don't install Ubuntu Netbook Edition while on deadline. Don't install Ubuntu Netbook Edition while on deadline. Don't install… #
  • Maybe "John Barry" isn't really a specific composer, but merely a code name used by a long line of British secret-agent/composers. #

    • Continue reading “Past Week at Twitter.com/Disquiet”