Monty Adkins / Terri Hron
Lépidoptères
CANADA empreintes DIGITALes IMED 16136 CD (2016)
Last heard purveying Rothko-esque, aquatic ambience in Unfurling Lines (the waterways of which having lulled but not quite committed me to my final rest), ambient composer Monty Adkins makes a stylistic metamorphosis and takes to the air with a new collaborator Terri Hron and her ‘consort of renaissance recorders’ for a five-section survey of moths, butterflies and other winged insects, each piece deriving from an idea about a particular order. This ‘display case’ approach makes sense in the empreintes DIGITALes catalogue, where each collection receives the taxonomer’s treatment; every piece given a full exegesis – often quite scientific in tone – in the liner notes.
It also delivers straight into the action, avoiding the long narrative arc from minimal matter to maximal clatter that such singular, scientific surveys tend to take as the depth of field narrows on increasingly intricate detail. Each section constitutes its own field of activity, marked by a set of common features, such as the recorders’ sharp, electrified exhortations that weave, whistle and roll into granulated deconstructions of their own essence. Those of us with gardens might forget the butterfly’s decorativeness in this thick, processed churn of organic, primal matter, which really digs into the violence of full-blown physical change. It also reminds us of the truly alien aspect these creatures acquire when considered up close; their insect sensibilities airborne in dotted patterns, the quivering of internal cavities and the organic passage of events that finds its natural habitat when just shy of critical mass.