Torto Editions / Ramble Records / Atena Records – 25th July 2025
Christopher Nosnibor
DuChamp (certainly not to be confused with the seminal avant-gardist Marcel Duchamp) is a Berlin-based artist, and for this release, is the product of ‘a journey of development, research, and refinement of a deeply personal voice’, their chosen selection of instruments is listed as ‘baritone guitar, voice, organ, synths, bouzuki, electronics, incredible stubbornness.’
The baritone guitar is not a common instrument, but oner which sounds quite unlike any other guitar in terms of its tonality. Its application here is in providing the core to elongated sonorous drones on the five compositions on The Wild Joy. It’s a title I take to be somewhat ironic, for despite the resplendent flora which graces the album’s cover, the title of the first piece, ‘Sine proprio’ translates, depending on your choice of reference source, as ‘without property’, ‘without possession’, or ‘poverty’. Whether or not this is a reference to a physical or spiritual poverty isn’t apparent, but what this nine-and-a-half minute dronescape does possess is a wealth of texture as the layers build and vibrate against one another.
‘The Shape of Time’ is very much constructed around contrasts; a whining, scraping drone nags the conscious level of listening, while a low, rumbling bassy resonance lingers way below, and it’s something you feel as much as hear. In the space between, incidentals drift in and out. In the distance, gongs chime and fade slowly, and the disparity between their timing and that of the pulsating throb which has begun to build is disorientating, unsettling.
‘Epithalamion’ marks a dramatic shift – in every way, starting with the change of instrumentation, and by no means ending with the change of approach, with a wild, undisciplined key-bashing crescendo occupying the first couple of minutes, before giving way to a wheezing sound like an organ on the brink of expiry. With its origins in the classical age, an epithalamium is a poem written specifically for the bride on the way to her marital chamber. This, however, sounds more like a piano being pushed down six flights of stairs, before a ghastly gasp sputters along interminably for the remainder of the duration. I pity the bride this was penned for.
Things are different again on ‘Fulaxos’: there, the baritone guitar comes into its own and to the fore, played conventionally, a picked, rolling motif that’s brooding, even doomy provides the starting point for a piece which gradually unfurls toward a place of light and optimism. The final track, which is also the title track, brings us almost full-circle, but there’s a levity to this extended, delicate dronescape, and the soaring vocal only accentuates this sense of elevation.
The joy may be somewhat subdued overall, but it’s there, on what is, ultimately, an accomplished, multi-faceted work.
AA
Aural Aggravation 