Every so often we get musicians who decide they must get back to first principles and start asking fundamental questions about what their chosen instruments actually “do”; this can involve a radical deconstruction of said instrument, or even of the style in which it is played. Some of this line of thought may have fed into the construction of kopfüberwelle (ABSINTH RECORDS 024), where the players Chris Abrahams and Sabine Vogel ask each other some pretty pointed questions about the flute and the organ. They tend to ask these questions in musical form, and the enactments of these conceptual ideas are what we hear on the record, a fairly minimal and often beautiful set of pieces recorded in 2010 at a church in Zepernick. The study they make involves a comparison of the similarities and differences between the two, so we are treated to a fairly commonplace list of observations about air flowing through pipes and the respective limitations of the instruments. I suppose this could be fairly interesting, except I think it’s fair to say that old-fashioned classical composers have been aware of such characteristics for hundreds of years, and have reflected this understanding in their notated dynamics, the choice of instruments when scoring for the orchestra, etc. Where would we be without avant-garde musicians rediscovering the obvious for us? This gripe aside, the music here is enjoyable enough. Their most original discovery in this experiment is that the flute player is free to move up and down the performance hall, while the organist is not. This leads to some unusual acoustic sonorities as Sabine Vogel’s flute tone bounces off the wall of the church, or otherwise changes according to where he’s positioned himself. These process-based rules sometimes tend to dominate the work, becoming the primary reason for the performance, but the duo still arrive at some gorgeous sonorities, and do achieve the hoped-for blendings where you cannot tell one instrument from the other. Amidst all the poised and mannered droning, the track ‘Floating Head Over’ stands out for its slightly uncanny moaning voice, which I assume is Chris Abrahams generating a few head tones through his nose or mouth. If he’s doing so while also playing the flute, it’s a notable feat. (11/12/2012).
Nice blending of synthetic and acoustic tones on The Contaminist (INTANGIBLE CAT CAT 16), assembled by Homogenized Terrestrials (i.e. Phil Klampe). He does it by mixing recordings of synthesizers, percussion, field recordings and the human voice, until everything becomes a thickly wafered agglomeration under his processing tools. Much to his credit, he avoids numerous pitfalls of much ambient music, even when aligning himself with Brian Eno, Fennesz, or Robin Storey (as the press notes have it); he studiously rejects any clichéd or over-familiar sound. The other thing I enjoy is the eccentric structure of each piece; they don’t tend to follow linear compositional rules to do with beginnings, endings, and conventional rise-and-fall dynamics. Instead, Klampe succeeds in delivering genuinely open-ended compositions which float along like free-travelling bubble shapes in the ether, without succumbing to the usual problem faced by contemporary electronic music, that of pointless meandering with no end in view. In this context, his title ‘Gravity Reversed’ seems exceptionally apt. Not a track here outstays their welcome (most last around three or four minutes) and by completion of piece you experience a notable satisfaction and do at least feel like some useful information has been imparted. As can be seen from cover art, he likens himself to a bee collecting pollen. Or maybe the flowers themselves are like the music, and we as listeners must gather what we can, using our proboscis like an ear trumpet and bringing the golden tones back to the listening hive. Sorry about these over-stretched metaphors…From 13 February 2013.
My Dear Killer is the latest in a line of idiosyncratic and unusual musicians on the Italian Boring Machines label, with a solo album The Electric Dragon Of Venus (BM047LP). Like label mate Rella The Woodcutter, this singer-songwriter wields a jet black acoustic guitar which he strums in plangent fashion, his stark and clipped chords ringing out across a metaphysical void. On top of this spare framework, he adds his cryptic lyrics filled with many poignant symbols of alienation, disconnectedness, and melancholy. To make the listening experience even more craggy to your ears, there’s the decidedly odd singing voice; My Dear Killer is so apparently choked up with nameless emotions that he can barely complete a phrase, and the lines judder out of his tremulous throat in a deliciously broken fashion. Even though the lyrics are English, this intense affectation makes the words quite hard to understand. In short, this ghostly update on the acoustic Syd Barrett performs as though the recording studio were a prison cell, a confessional where he can disclose his most intimate thoughts in his inimitable halting fashion. I’m touched to learn that his previous LP – released many years ago in 2006 – was called Clinical Shyness, perhaps a diagnosis of the artist’s borderline personality disorder. To further crystallise the strangeness of this album, there are bouts of electric guitar (often scuzzed up with distortion and feedback) thrown in as occasional non-accompaniments to some of the songs, by which I mean these guitar lines bear no relation whatsoever to the metre, tone or mood of the song, and feel more like unwelcome mental apparitions, storm clouds on the mental horizon of the troubled singer. Then there are snippets of sound effects and field recordings which bookend most of the tracks; the sound of innocent children playing in the street has rarely seemed so forlorn and tragic. My Dear Killer’s sound is very much an acquired taste, but there’s no denying the sincerity of this album, nor the depth of his hurt. From February 2013.