Posts Tagged ‘Avant-garde’

Phill Niblock – Looking for Daniel

Posted: 25 January 2024 in Albums, Reviews
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Unsounds/Echonance Festival – 2nd February 2024

Christopher Nosnibor

It’s never a comfortable experience to learn of someone’s passing, even if it’s someone you’re only really aware of rather than familiar with. My knowledge of Phill Niblock and his work was relatively scant, although I had written about a few of his releases over the years. I wasn’t particularly enthused by Touch Five back in 2013 – an album I would probably appreciate considerably more now. This likely says as much about me as it does Phill Niblock, but does perhaps indicate just how artists who fully espouse avant-gardism are always ahead, and tend to only be truly appreciated later. And so, to learn of Niblock’s passing only this month, from the press release which accompanies this release was a… moment, a cause to pause.

And so as I read how this release serves to ‘commemorate the late Phill Niblock with this release made in close collaboration with the composer,’ and features recordings of some of his very last compositions just before his passing in January 2024. ‘The two works on this album, ‘Biliana’ (2023) and ‘Exploratory, Rhine Version, Looking for Daniel’ (2019) represent the hallmarks of his unique approach to composition where multiple, closely-tuned instruments and voices are used to create rich and complex sonic tapestries…

The fact that he was still composing up to the age of ninety is remarkable. The fact these two pieces don’t feel radically different from much of his previous work is impressive. And yet, in context, the fact that these final works are such long, expansive, and unsettling compositions feels fitting.

To understand and contextualise the pieces, it’s worth quoting directly: ‘In Biliana, written for performer Biliana Voutchkova, her violin phrases and vocalizations carve out a deep sonorous space full of fluctuating overtones. By emphasizing on the physicality and materiality of her sound, the piece gives us the sensation of stepping back to reveal a singular portrait of the musician. ‘Exploratory, Rhine Version, Looking for Daniel’ was recorded by two Netherlands based ensembles, Modelo62, and Scordatura ensemble from a live recording made at the Orgelpark, Amsterdam during the Echonance Festival in February 2023. It is a complex work comprising of 20 parts, where lines seem to emerge and disappear out of a landscape of harmonies and sonic spectra. There is also a voice hidden in this mass of instruments, just like in Biliana, giving both works an added human element – something that always emerges out of Phill Niblock’s seemingly dense musical constructions.’

Each piece takes a long form, extending beyond the twenty-minute mark.

A decade ago, I bemoaned just how ‘droney’ Touch Five was, how it was impossible to perceive any tonal shifts. Listening to ‘Biliana’, I’d have likely posited the same complaint, bit with hindsight and personal progression, it’s the eternal hum, the intense focus on the most minute and incredibly gradual of shifts, which are precisely the point and the purpose – and the things to appreciate. On the one hand, it is testing. It’s minimal to the point of a near-absence, an emptiness, but present enough to creep around your cranium in the most disquieting of fashions.

It’s not uncommon to lie awake and night or have deep pangs of regret which knot the stomach when you replay that awkward exchange, that time you said the wrong thing, the occasion when you plain made a twat of yourself one way or another. The same anguish hangs heavy over reviews where I’ve simply been wrong. There’s no way of undoing them – and to repost or revise down the line would be disingenuous, an act of historical revision. You can only correct the future in the present, and not in the past. We all know how rewinding history to make a minor alteration goes. Before you know it, your hands are fading and you’re about to become your own father or something.

You almost feel yourself fading over the duration of ‘Biliana’ as the eternal glide of string sounds hangs thick and thickening in the air and somehow at the same time remains static. Where is it going? Where are you going? Everything feels frozen in time, slowed to complete stasis in a slow-motion drift. Wondering, waiting… for what? A change. But why would change come? Breathe, let it glide slowly over you, however much you feel a sense of suffocation.

‘Exploratory, Rhine Version, Looking for Daniel’ begins sparser, darker, danker. Ominous, string-line drones swell and linger, here with scraping dissonance and long-looming hums. Nothing specific happens… but it crawls down your spine and you feel your skin tingle and creep. Nothing is quite right, nothing is as it should be.

Over the course of his long, long career as a defining figure of the contemporary avant-garde, Niblock was outstanding in his singularity, and the unswerving nature of his compositions, a vision which, as this release evidences, remained unaltered to the end.

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Reinhold Friedl / Martin Siewert – Lichtung

Posted: 10 January 2024 in Albums, Reviews
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Karlrecords – 21st January 2024

Christopher Nosnibor

Reinhold Friedl’s career has been long and interesting, and continues to be so. The list of collaborations on his resumé is beyond outstanding, and he has taken the concept of the prepared piano, as first conceived by John Cage, to limits beyond imagination. As such, while the idea may not have been his own, Friedl’s advancement over the last twenty years has been the definition of innovation. But what makes Friedl such a remarkable figure is his capacity to explore so many different and divergent avenues, and to turn his hand to so many different projects – and this latest, with Martin Siewert is exemplary. Siewert’s instrument is the guitar, but his style of playing is far from conventional, tending to conjure atmosphere from feedback and sustain and otherwise working the space between the notes instead of blasting chords. As such, this is an inspired pairing.

Lichtung blasts in with a thick, heavy, grindy drone that almost borders on Sunn O)) territory: the twenty-four-minute first track, ‘Genese’ is a journey, which begins with an all-out assault of thick, gut-twisting drone and shards of shrieking feedback which twist into a maelstrom of chaos before receding to reveal altogether more tranquil shores. From this, it builds, a droning, churning wash, buzzing drones and dramatic crashes. And from the rising tempest, lone piano notes rise… These particular notes are identifiable as a regular piano, rather than a ‘prepared’ one – but that’s the nature of the tweaked instrument: random items on the strings create random sounds. It’s a curious array of sounds, and over the course of the track, the sound rises and falls, ebbs and flows, but the water is always choppy, the storm building and rumbling before it rages its full force. ‘Genese’ feels like it could be an album in its own right, but there’s a whole lot more to come.

‘Gedstade’ is a mere interlude at five minutes in duration: with plinking, plonking random twangs and scrapes and woozy drones, not to mention extraneous noise and crashes and more, it’s strong on atmosphere and oddness.

Often when interacting with music, or when critiquing music – and these are two different, if quite proximate experiences – I will ask myself, or otherwise consider, ‘how does this make me feel?’ Because ultimately, music, like any art, is about the experience of the recipient, and that experience defines its success and / or impact. To expand on that, and to clarify, many may dislike and so decry a great work of art on account of their singular experience, because it’s difficult to rationalise or otherwise quantify said work. As a critic, to baldly declare ‘they’re wrong’ would be a mistaken and to devalue the experience of others. But if others share a very different experience… then that is their experience.

And so we arrive at ‘Gestitche’, the album’s third and final track, a fifteen minute exploratory work which begins with crashes of low-end piano which sound like thunder and shake the ground beneath this exploratory composition. It’s heavy, doomy, dolorous. The scratchy, discordant guitar work only accentuated the album’s immensely broad sonic range. Squalling squealing guitar ruckus and feedback riot tears its way through the tempest of noise and plunging piano and sputtering sparks of wires. As the track progresses, things evolve and escalate, the thunder builds to a tempest, and at times you feel thoroughly assailed.

To my ears, then, Lichtungis a compelling experience. Lichtung is unquestionably niche, like all of Friedl’s but that in no way diminishes its value. And the joy of Friedl’s work is its variety, and the way in which he interacts with his collaborators. To this end, this album is a work which brings joy.

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ØrsØ – Terms and Conditions EP

Posted: 5 January 2024 in Reviews, Singles and EPs
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Lake of Confidence – 15th December 2023

Christopher Nosnibor

Having worked for far too many years in financial services in order to pay the bills, ‘terms and conditions’ is a term that weighs heavily on my soul and my psyche. All that small print… the devil is in the details, and there’s a good reason customers often feel swindled by the inclusion of impenetrable clauses written in language which only someone with an advanced degree in legalese could even begin to decipher. The title, then, brings fitting connotations to a complex and detailed work, although, mercifully, it’s more rewarding than frustrating and doesn’t leave you feeling bamboozled and shafted over.

Label Lake of Confidence – which sounds like it’s on the moon – informs us that ØrsØ’s debut EP ‘is a reflection on our civilization, offering a gripping critique of consumable culture and post-social network alienation.’ They also describe his style as a fusion of ‘experimental music, indietronica, dark wave and English-speaking pop’, and ‘English-speaking’ is right: ‘Unreal Moment’ has the nagging industrial-strength electro pulse of DAF paired with the electro pop layering of early Pet Shop Boys, topped with a vocal delivery that alludes to the monotone nonchalance of The Flying Lizards.

ØrsØ’s brilliance lies in his ability to amalgamate such a range of elements while still keeping the compositions relatively simple, structurally and in terms of things happening at any given time. These songs – and they very much are songs, even if conventional hooks and choruses aren’t dominant features – are clever and carefully constructed. ‘Dancing Girl’ has something of a recent Sparks vibe about it, while he channels shades of Bowie in the vocals, and this is accentuated on ‘To Yourself’, which could be an outtake from Outside.

The EP’s five tracks showcase the work of an artist who possesses a high level of musical articulacy, matched by a high level of experimental curiosity. There isn’t a weak track here, and significantly, no two tracks are particularly alike: the last of the five, ‘Follow the Wind’ brings a more overtly dance feel, with a pumping bass beat and rippling, trancey synths, but at the same time, there are hints of The Human League and Visage in the mix.

In an ocean – not a lake – of retro-tinged, vaguely dark-hued synthy pop, ØrsØ’s ‘Terms and Conditions’ stands out as being more detailed, more nuanced, and more inventive in its assimilation of wide-ranging elements – and the results are accomplished.

Madrelarva – Tierra de Silencio

Posted: 18 December 2023 in Albums, Reviews
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Cruel Nature Recordings – 24th November 2023

Christopher Nosnibor

Spanish electronic musician Julio Tornero has been producing minimal techno, IDM and experimental music since 2015. He’s one of those people who has a million different projects and as many different pseudonyms, also recording as Dark Tibet, Oceanic Alpha Axis, Sequences Binaires, with his work published by a multitude of labels including Fmur, Intellitronic Bubble, Detriti, Phantasma Disques.

I never cease to be amazed by artists who simply effuse and froth with creative output: how do they do it? How do they have the time, let alone the headspace? Given the economics of art in the 21st century, the likelihood of a life on the further recesses of obscurity in the most obscure of genres could provide a living seems improbable, but then to have the capacity to produce art after the slog of a day-job seems almost superhuman. And this, this is not just some easy, off-the-cuff, going-through-the-motions half-arsed toss-off.

Tierra de Silencio is pitched as ‘A homage to the formative years and evolution of electronic music’, with nods to Nurse With Wound and other progenitors of that nascent industrial sound, which was born primarily out of a spirit of experimentalism, and a desire to be different, facilitated as it was by emerging technology.

It’s perhaps hard to really assimilate now how the late 70s and early 80s witnessed a technology explosion, which not only witnessed the advent of new synths and drum machines, but saw them become available on a low-budget, mass-market basis. But while many bought them up and started making synth pop, some oddballs did what oddballs always to and decided to push the kit as hard as they could. And some of the results were utterly deranged. Tape loops and all kinds of messing yielded results with varying degrees of listenability, from Throbbing Gristle to NWW to Foetus and Cabaret Voltaire.

With only four tracks, this is one of those albums which would lend itself to an extravagant 2×12” release, with a track per side, since these are very much longform works, with ‘Duermevela’ stretching out beyond seventeen minutes, and the title track lasting more than a quarter of an hour. But if the expectation is for a set of compositions which are primitive, difficult, and in some way steeped in nostalgia for that early 80s noise, this isn’t that album. Despite the analogue feel, Tierra de Silencio finds Tornero exploring the spirit of the period, rather than striving to recreate the sound.

The first track, ‘Metamorph’ splashes in at the dancier end of the spectrum with some hard groove vibes. Fast, urgent, flickery, and glittery, it’s a shimmering curtain of electronica which ripples over a driving, dynamic beat that doesn’t let up. It’s got heavy hints of DAF, but it’s still not without a taste of Yello or Chris and Cosey. And it keeps on going for eleven and a half minutes. In time, the beat peters out and we’re left in a whirlpool of fizzing electronics.

The aforementioned ‘Duermevela,’ the album’s second track, draws on 70s electronica, with endless bubbling, rippling synths and incursions of altogether harsher sounds. Blasts of dark noise deluge over the bleak explosions of dankness. The beats are busy, and also metrononomic, and the effect is mesmerising.

Something dazzles for a moment. Then the lights flicker. What is this? This is likely panic. Negatividad Absoluta binks, bonks, bleeps and tweets, and the atmosphere is 70s sci-fi, something on the cusp of strangeness, jarring, alien, robotic. There are crunches and fizzes, crackles of distortion, and top-end tones ping back and forth like ping-pong.

Tierra de Silencio is very much an album which pushes an experimental vibe, while maxing out on what feels now like more contemporary dance tropes, largely on account of the rippling synths and glooping repetition. But it also incorporates elements of Kraftwerk and early Human League in its deployment of those vintage synth sounds and layerings. It’s an intriguing and entertaining work, and it passes hypnotically in what feels like no time at all.

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Palmer ++ Procter – what does the fjord say and what do we say in reply?

Posted: 1 December 2023 in Albums
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Dret Skivor – 1st December 2023

Christopher Nosnibor

Yes, that’s fjord, not fox, meaning you won’t find these collaborating sound artists bouncing around the woods dressed as furry animals, making daft, random sounds. Well, you won’t find them bouncing around the woods dressed as furry animals, anyway, although Dave Procter did spend many years performing while wearing a latex pig’s head, but he put a stop to that after David Cameron started turning up at his shows.

This latest collaboration between Martin Palmer and Dave Procter is, in fact, inspired by the site of previous experimental audio tests in 2019, namely the sculpture “what does the fjord say?” in Trondheim harbour. As they tell it in the accompanying notes, ‘Armed with percussive sticks, contact microphones, audio recorders and the occasional toy and synth, they set about a full exploration of the sculpture and their own sonic ideas in and around the sculpture, using created and environmental sounds to answer the question posed by the sculpture. These recordings are Palmer and Procter’s replies.’

The first reply ‘støyende arbeider’ is more of a lecture than a simple reply, with a running time of twenty-one minutes. Consisting of random clatters, crashes, squidges, squelches and shifting hums which ebb and flow amongst an array of incidental intrusions, it’s more of a non-linear rambling explication, and exploration of the rarely-explored recesses of the mind than a cogent conclusion. But then, why should a reply necessarily be an answer. This, then, is a dialogue, a discussion, not an interview constructed around a Q&A format. It’s nothing so formal, and all the more interesting for its being open-ended, evolving organically. There are points at which the thuds, clanks and scrapes grow in their intensity, creating a sense of frustration, as if attempting to unravel a most complex conundrum and finding oneself stuck and annoyed by the fact that there is something just out of reach, something you can’t quite recall. And at times, this is also the listener’s experience. The way to approach this is by giving up on the expectation or hope of coherence, or anything resembling a tune, and yield to the spirit of experimentalism.

‘Moose Cavalry’ and ‘Mock Paloma’ are both significantly shorter pieces, the former being atmospheric and evocative, the animalistic calls conjuring images of beats roaming moorlands in the mist. Plaintive, droning moans and lows transmogrify into warped, pained cries and needling drones. The latter is different again: dark, tense, shrill tones scratch and scrape, flit and fly, reverberating from all directions. It’s unsettling, uncomfortable.

These three compositions are so different from one another, it superficially makes for a somewhat disjointed set, but on deeper reflection, what Palmer and Procter have forged a work which demonstrates how it’s possible, and even desirable, to approach a subject from multiple angles and perspectives. I still don’t know what the fjord says, but I do know that Palmer and Procter have posed some interesting musings in response.

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ZAHN – Adria

Posted: 19 November 2023 in Albums
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Crazysane Records – 24th Nov 2023

Christopher Nosnibor

The press release describes Zahn as a ‘German post–modern noise rock ensemble’, while their bandcamp bio offers ‘A bold escape from your daily life through technicolor transmissions of post–rock, krautrock, dark jazz, noise–rock, post–punk and electronic music. Influenced by the likes of TRANS AM, THE JESUS LIZARD, METZ, THE MELVINS and TORTOISE’, adding that ‘Adria is a compelling soundtrack to a 1980’s anti–utopian road movie!’

As a prospect, it’s head-spinning, sounding like an everything-all-at-once hybrid, and the actuality isn’t much different. There are plenty of driving grooves, largely propelled by solid bass and insistent drumming, but there are also some angular riffs and big splashes of noise.

The first track, ‘Zebra,’ boasts a bulbous bass with some big low-end and some easy, noodly synths which wibble and wander agreeably and mellifluously… and then towards the end it builds and distorts and things get altogether more twisted and less pleasant. And this is a feature characteristic of the compositions on show here. They don’t mash everything into every second simultaneously, and there’s none of that jazz / Beefheart kind of stuff that sounds like each band member is playing a different tune in a different key and time signature all at the same time. There are times where that kind of avant-gardism most definitely has its place, and works, but this isn’t what Zahn are doing here. In keeping with the road movie concept, the pieces are constructed around transition.

The ten-minute ‘Schmuck’ is a magnificent example of their ability to do mellow, with clean sounds and even a tinge of a country twang, it swings along breezily and evokes sunshine and expansive vistas. Then, near the seven-minute mark, the bass steps up to a crunching grind and things get a whole lot noisier, from where it builds into a big, driven riff which crackles with energy. ‘Yuccatan 3E’ is another colossus of a cut, running to almost nine and a half minutes and manages to take it time in pushing outwards and working a single passage for a fair while, but equally packs in at least three or four songs’ worth of ideas.

The changes feel organic, and sometimes emerge gradually, and at others there will be a sudden and unexpected swerve, and there’s so much happening that the absence of vocals barely registers.

Because the mood, tone, and tempo differs so radically between songs – and between sections – Adria very much does feel like a journey, through space and time. ‘Apricot’ is a sparse synth work with crispy vintage drum machine snare cutting through quavering analogue synth sounds – then, without changing the instrumentation or the simple repetitive motif, it goes massive. A post-rock Depeche Mode chronically undersells it, but it’s as close as I can get, at least off the top of my head. The final minute is an extravagant climax, and truly magnificent.

The majority of the album’s eleven tracks run past five minutes, with the majority sitting more around the seven-minute mark, but the eleven-and-a-half-minute ‘Faser’ is the album’s megalithic centrepiece. It blasts hard with a fuzzy, scuzzy repetitive riff cycle with stoner rock tendencies, and it’s dynamic and exhilarating. Dropping down to bubbling synths in the breakdown around six minutes in, the threat of a re-emergence of the heavy lingers suspensefully. When it does land, it does so with a vengeance, before transitioning once more into something altogether different again, skittering its way into Krautrock territory.

The power blast of ‘Tabak’ hits square between the eyes and feels unexpected however expected it actually is. These guys are absolute masters of the unpredictable and varied structure, and conjure some highly evocative and atmospheric passages, and while the playing is technical, it’s not technical for its own sake: there’s nothing showy or extravagant, and the focus is very much on the compositions, the structures, and the impact. ‘Amaranth’ piledrives a full-on doom riff, slogging away at it for what feel like an eternity. It’s a heavy trudge, and really hits the spot – again, when you least expect it.

Adria straddles many, many genres, and does so in a way that’s incredibly imaginative. The key to its success is its execution, which balances precision with passion.

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Sun Color Sound – Ritual One (Climbing the Fire into the Sky)

Posted: 17 November 2023 in Albums
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Mind Altering Records – 13th November 2023

Christopher Nosnibor

Back at the start of 2021, I penned a pretty positive review of the solarminds album Her Spirit Cracked the Sky. The combination of ambience and extreme weight was a thrilling proposition. And it was – and still is – monumentally epic. It feels a long time ago already, and much has happened in the interim. If emerging from the pandemic was trailed for a long time by the release of myriad ‘lockdown’ projects, we’ve subsequently trickled into a ‘world’s turned to shit’ phase, and like the pandemic, it feels like there’s no end in sight. Trump may be out of office, but he still looms large and continues to pose a threat in the arena of world politics, and it’s a world at war, and a world where alternately wild fires and floods decimate swathes of land. Slowly but surely, the planet is becoming less inhabitable. And yet, still, people jet off on skiing holidays and bemoan the lack of snow despite being the cause of the lack of snow, and whenever it rains, people take to their cars to make five-minute journeys to avoid getting wet, thus ensuring it will rain an awful lot more in the time to come.

And since the release of Her Spirit Cracked the Sky, after more than a decade, Chris Miner has put the project to bed. But, like the proverbial phoenix rising from the ashes, he now returns with Sun Colour Sound, and the first in a projected trilogy of releases. On the evidence of this first one, it will be something special.

Ritual One (Climbing the Fire into the Sky) consists of a single piece, which runs just short of half an hour, and it shares many elements with solarminds – namely a fair bit of noise, some hefty guitars and punishing percussion, at least in the first two thirds, and it’s heavy, harsh, noisy, and it crashes straight in with some grating, heavy drone, twisting feedback and thudding drums.

This is one of those tracks which stars like the end of many sets, and it feels like it’s winding down from the offing. This is by no means a criticism, simply an observation that what in the context of many works is a climactic, tempestuous crescendo finale, is simply the start of a ferocious sonic storm. It does very much call to mind Sunn O))) and the epic, swirling instrumental passages of contemporary Swans, although the guitars are very much geared towards generating howling feedback rather than crushing, clashing chords that sound like buildings being demolished. Therte’s something of a psychedelic twist in the spacey delivery, too. As whining, whistling notes ring out, the percussion builds from the occasional roll to a relentless thunder. The combination is immensely powerful, and assails the senses with a real physicality. Buy around the thirteen-minute mark, it’s reached wall-of-sound levels, a dense, shimmering sonic force which shimmers and ripples while coming on like a bulldozer, at the same time as hand drums fly at a frantic pace and evoking something spiritual in the midst of a hypnotic frenzy. And still, it goes on, surging forwards.

The shift in the final third occurs subtly: the percussion continues to clatter away, but the guitar abrasion tapers away, to be replaced by altogether softer strings.

Ritual One (Climbing the Fire into the Sky) is more than just a really long piece of music: it’s an ambitious piece in every way, and its scope and scale are immense. There is so much depth and detail here, and it takes repeated listens to really appreciate just how much is happening, especially given that the first reaction is simply to bow to its sheer sonic force.

But the last ten minutes belong to a different world from the first portion. Hypnotic, soothing, graceful, the tension dissipates and Eastern vibes radiate through the gauze-like layers which drift and float over the busy but altogether more subdued percussion.

So while it is an ambitious work, it also delvers far above any expectations, and it’s both unique and special.

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Red Painted Red – That Was the Reason Why

Posted: 6 October 2023 in Albums
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ZOHARUM – 17th October 2023

Christopher Nosnibor

It wasn’t so long ago that I’d arrive home from work and struggle to open the door for the pile of jiffy bags which had cascaded through the letterbox while I was out, and that I’d regularly receive vinyl for review in the mail. The pandemic and the spiralling coast of everything really kicked that into touch. The sheer volume was quite overwhelming at times, but I do miss it, and the occasional delivery of a physical copy of a release reminds me why.

My copy of That Was the Reason Why was accompanied by a stack of wonderful postcards for a start: a strange array of scenes printed on thick card with a matte finish they’re fantastic. And so is the CD’s tri-fold packaging, which includes the full album lyrics, which I read through as I’m listening to the album. Yeah, yeah, I’m old – at least according so some people. But yes, I grew up with physical media and am comfortable with that as I read the contents of the truly beautiful sleeve. This is what people who don’t do, and have never done, physical media are missing out on. The fact is that music is, or at least is at its best, a multi-sensory, inter-dimensional experience. I took this for granted when I was younger. I’d go to record shops in town and but records and tapes, and later CDs, and spend hours looking at the artwork and pouring over the lyric sheets.

Starting with beeping keytones and with an ominous keyboard score, ‘Human Condition’ is dark and dense and builds a palpable tension as the glacial robotic vocals enunciate the stark declarations of ‘Self-mutilator. Mother. Arsonist. Materialist. Abuser. Assassin. Scientist. Charmer. Harmer. Narcissist. Artist. Redeemer. Explorer of the fauna’ on a loop that becomes more chilling with each cycle. Creepy is the word, and the bass and drums build as the track progresses, along with the extraneous noise that sits behind the nagging motif.

‘Astronauts’ cuts a sound collage which overlays a strolling, bass-led groove that’s almost proggy, and over that, Yew spins semi-narrative lyrics with cool detachment.

That Was the Reason Why is an unusual blend of experimentalism, cut-ups, collaging, and trippiness, which incorporates elements of a range of genres but belongs to none. The synthiness of the sultry ‘Come to Me’ is almost Vangellis-like, while ‘Knife’ is sparse, atmospheric electronica that’s oddly reminiscent of Kate Bush, at least in Yew’s delivery, and it’s magnificently melodic and dreamy in a melancholic sort of a way, and ‘Silence’ brings discord, abrasion and snarling zombie backing vocals tearing through a hybrid post-punk drone that sounds like a collision between The Doors and Toyah. ‘Dances’ is altogether weightier, and brings hints of Swans circa Children of God. But for all of its diversity and divergence, there is a strong homogeneity to the album as a whole, and it works well.

Samples of narrative and dialogue, and snippets of all sorts come together to conjure a disorientating reflection of the world and somewhere beyond – sometimes exterior, sometimes interior, bringing inner space and outer space into the same frame. Breathy, ethereal, yet tense and claustrophobic, That Was the Reason Why is a dialogue of inner turmoil, an exploration of liminal spaces, and an unstintingly intriguing and unusual work.

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Watch: ‘ZEHN’ by ZAHN

Posted: 5 October 2023 in Reviews
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German post–modern ensemble ZAHN have today shared a lyric video for instrumental track ‘ZEHN’. Yes, you read that right.

“The video to our new song ‘ZEHN’ is a poem for instrumental music enthusiasts. A silent movie. A song for the deaf. Nina Walser (Friends Of Gas) is singing you a ditty but you won’t be able to hear it. Just read along and listen and it all will make perfect sense.” – ZAHN

It’s a proper headfuck, and proper good too, and you can watch it here:

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zeitkratzer – Scarlatti

Posted: 14 September 2023 in Albums
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zeitkratzer productions / Karlrecords – 22nd September 2023

Christopher Nosnibor

SCARLATTI represents something of a departure for zeitkratzer, the neoclassical collective headed by Reinhold Friedl, master of the prepared piano and a renowned avant-garde composer in his own right. While their performance and recordings usually focus on modern composers and avant-gardists spanning Stockhausen and John Cage via Whitehouse and Lou Reed, with a reinterpretation of Metal Machine Music, here they turn their attention to the altogether more historical figure of Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757). He is best known – although this is relative – for composing some five hundred and fifty-five keyboard sonatas, and his being a progenitor of classical music. But a large portion of his work went unpublished in huis lifetime, and much has only been available sporadically since.

As the notes which accompany the album explain, ‘Little is known about Domenico Scarlatti… His music is, so to speak, left to its own devices: free, cheeky, playful, sonorous, surprising… Harmonically strolling again and again into unforeseen regions, the ear leads, not the theory; and also the fingers get their right: playful and haptic it goes. Scarlatti explained, “since nature has given me ten fingers and my instrument provides employment for all, I see no reason why I should not use all ten of them.”

But Scarlatti does not contain music by Scarlatti. Instead, the six tracks presented here are all composed by Friedl in response to Scarlatti’s work.

As such, this is much a celebration of Scarlatti’s ideas and approach to composition and so the explanation of the process and thinking behind it bears quoting: ‘Freedom, friction and listening pleasure instead of convention: “He knew quite well that he had disregarded all the rules of composition in his piano pieces, but asked whether his deviation from the rules offended the ear? He believes there is almost no other rule than that of not offending the only sense whose object is music – the ear.”

‘Reinhold Friedl applied this principle and composed the music for a choreography by dance company Rubato. Dance music drawn from Scarlatti, who was so inspired by dance music. The material of the piano sonata F-minor K.466 is twisted anew in all its richness, shifted back and forth, declined, frozen, noisified, sound structures extracted, floating. Those who know the sonata, will more than smell it’s [sic] shadows.’

The six pieces are indeed varied, in terms of mood and form. ‘lias’ is booming, droning, woozy, slow discordant jazz, low, slow, and with lengthy pauses. It’s not something anyone can dance to, and rather than light and playful, it feels dark and sombre. This is less true of the altogether sparser, but stealthily atmospheric ‘muget’.

‘pissenlit’ blasts in with churning industrial noise, a snarling blast that lurches and thunders, crashes and pounds withy relentless brutality. It’s clearly as far removed from the music of the seventeenth century as is conceivable, but beside the lilting piano and quivering, droning strings and subsequent stop-start levity of ‘reine des prés’ the sequencing of the pieces serves to highlight Scarlatti’s versatility, if not necessarily his predilection for playfulness. The playfulness manifests differently and unexpectedly here: ‘pissenlit’ is in fact the French word for ‘dandelion’, a plant often associated with a certain element of fun, of lightness, so the fact that this piece is three and a half minutes of gut-punching abrasive noise worthy of Prurient or Consumer Electronics is illustrative of the disparity between expectation and actuality.

Discord and discomfort abounds as drones and strings tangle amongst one another, heaving and wheezing and occasionally offering glorious, sun-hued vistas through the breaks in the widely varied forms, which feel elastic, and as if Friedl and co are stretching the fabric of the material to see just how much it will give. And it turns out, there is a fair bit of room. ‘reine des prés’ explores space, the gaps and pauses between the notes, and feels like a sort of musical cat-and-mouse which would equally work as soundtrack piece, but it has a cartoonish quality which means it’s more Tom and Jerry than anything else. But it is by no means flippant, throwaway. Entertainment is serious business, after all.

‘violette des marais’ brings pomp and drama… while the final track, ‘astis’, is skittish, playful but also frustrating in its hesitant, halting structure.

Scarlatti is interesting, entertaining, and bold, going out on a limb to present such an unconventional interpretation of a historical artist’s career. But this is largely the purpose of zeitkratzer: together, they re-present music, excavating the archives but presenting them through a prism of contemporary and avant-gardism, with jazz leanings but without being jazz in the way most would interpret it. In short, zeitkratzer continue to push and redefine musical boundaries, and long may they do so.

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