Another fine work of long-form and testing improvisation is Miroir (AK004) on the French Akousis label. Cyprian Busolini and Bertrand Gauget explore overtones and harmonics in slow motion, on respective instruments viola and alto saxophone. “Intense listening” is tonight’s watchword, not just for them but for us; after some 20 minutes you’ll find you haven’t drawn a breath and you’re encased inside a stainless steel cannister. You’d be surprised at the dynamics, movements, and tensions these two can discover in what might appear a limited situation. Of the two I prefer ‘Oscillation’ at 27:54; the sister piece, ‘Vacillation’ makes too many concessions to the relative comfort of a root note and gentle breathy sounds. If, like me, you wish to sleep on a bed made of hard wooden planks, you too will make the correct decision. I suspect the title word “Miroir” was not chosen at random, and these two important players are aiming to show us a glass of truth, in which we may behold in unforgiving detail even the least attractive aspects (of ourselves, of our neighbours, of the world). The Paul Collins ‘Narcissus’ cover art follows this theme; that delicate green flower will soon wilt, like so many of our delusions. (30/08/2022)
Prolific French sound-artist Mathias Delplanque here with his Ô Seuil (ICI D’AILLEURS MT015) album, apparently intended as a sequel to his Drachen album from 2015, itself featuring an armchair on the cover overgrown with wild tendrils and created by much overdubbing of instruments we assume…Ô Seuil is an unpredictable melange of styles, musical forms, field recordings and effects, now simple now complex, ever-changing and executed with considerable skill and subtlety. Delplanque played all of it himself apart from guest player Francois Robin (who also appeared on the recent L’Ombre de la Bete oddity) who plays the veuze (traditional Breton bagpipe). Listeners who like a strong beat will enjoy sections of this album which are propelled along by exciting martial drumming of the sort that keeps Kevin Martin awake at night, but Delplanque’s plan is to keep us guessing, hence the deliberate strategy of following each pulse-racing type track with something sludgier, slower, and more opaque. There’s also wafts of non-European music folded into the apron, including from the Middle East and South-East Asia (we are informed), plus we can’t overlook the 2020 lockdown recordings he made by sticking a microphone outside the balcony of his home in Nantes. ‘Seuil 2’ goes even further down the diaristic and personal route by recounting, in sound, an entire story about a 2019 music festival that went horribly wrong…at least it did for one man who was trying to escape a police assault and ended up drowning in the river. If you like an album which attempts to tell stories, or at least embrace narrative themes, you could do worse than bend a readin’ ear or listening eye to Ô Seuil, even if its subtexts and themes are a little murky and the author’s style does veer towards bombastic and heavy. Another armchair odyssey from the “Mind Travels” series…(30/08/2022)
The French Eich label continues to surprise and amaze our lugged-up radar devices…label owner Jean-Philippe Gross teams up with Marc Baron to produce Black, Pink and Yellow Noises (EICH 005), and who better – Marc Baron, also French, is another of those whose work resists easy categorisation, and each new release tends to confirm that no-one has managed to get a handle on him yet, despite best efforts of the Canadian Mounties and other international police troupes. 20 short tracks await you, each durating in the two-three minute zones, and constantly delivering aural jolts and astounding reveals. All done in studio around 2021-2022. Maybe tapes, maybe electronic sounds, may be field recordings or pure noise…nothing much we know for certain as these brutal fragments are served up on the dish like so much minty goulash, but the two creators know exactly what they’re doing, particularly being very pro-active with the editing knife in one hand and the shock-ola juxtaposition method in the other clenched mitt. Loops, repeats…drawing ideas from the respectable school of INA GRM and related electro-acoustic endeavour, but also turning an eye towards “experimental hip-hop of recent years”, we are told – I wish I knew of any such records in that genre and buy them I would. There’s also an interest in exploiting the “glitch” in a new and exciting way, embracing damaged magnetic tape as part of the process. And, like two magicians, they make materials disappear immediately if we get too close to recognising something familiar. All this happening in the supposed conceptual grid of a colour chart – matching sounds to colours in some way, which isn’t commented on in the press notes (it should be). Black is followed by Pink, then Yellow…hermetic meanings probably abound…certainly not a colour scheme used by Mondrian for his tableaux, but perhaps we’re now dealing with sound spectra beyond the more familiar “white noise” that is spoken about by everyone from physical scientists to the janitor who works at Raster-Noton records. In all, a superb mastery of textures and contrasts, divided into intense bite-size portions of compressed ingenuity. Puzzling cover photo (skis and dog pawprints in the snow) too. A total gem of controlled noise…(30/08/2022)