Latest from Jason Kahn is Lacunae (A WAVE PRESS awp018), which with its use of noise, synths, and radio bursts, prompted me to search for a blue cassette of his. I mean Thirty Seconds Over which we heard in 2014, and gave ample demonstration of Kahn’s might and prowess in the sweat and push of the live situation.
One of the two long tracks on today’s CD is also live – ‘13.5.21’ it’s called, from a concert on that date at the Kunstraum Walcheturm in Zurich. To be more precise about the setup here, Kahn lists modular synth, a mixing desk, electro-magnetic inductor, contact mics, his own voice, and some prepared field recordings. Grainy photos on the cover may or may not depict said setup in the locale. It looks menacing. The music doesn’t sound like it would cure your headaches either, and one false move in the live environment would mean a civilian like myself would end up cooked. He’s referring in the notes to actions and movements which, to me, sound positively dangerous – handling open leads, making his synth overload itself, deliberately generating “chaotic feedback systems” and even putting his own body inside the flow of the circuits. I’m not entirely sure what this entails, but I like the way all this conveys a sense of edginess and risk, said risk ending up on the grooves of the disc for all to hear. Slip this in your home system and you’ll be tingling with the shock of 115 volts or jumping out of your bones as another jolting thunderbolt strike is hurled into our skulls by old “Mr Jove”. “This results in a very dynamic system”, remarks the artist calmly. That’s putting it mildly, Kahn!
I think the quality he’s seeking here is a power / force that’s hard to control, but when he manages to manhandle the electric snakes, causing them to do his bidding, the results are spectacular. As to the radio elements…I think there’s a combination of pre-recorded radio segments and also live samples captured while he’s doing it in the venue, adding yet more free-wheeling explosions and airbursts to the delicious hurly-burly. John Cage might’ve dug aspects of this method, although I’d like to think Kahn goes further in letting the hounds off the leash, where Cage might have preferred them to sit in their kennels as they barked and howled. However, we do get that very Cagean quality of “every performance is different”, which (claims Kahn) isn’t just because of the improvisational parts but the very specific radio sounds and physical qualities that pertain to that date, that venue, that part of the world. (There’s also the work of Nicolas Collins with his Devil’s Music which made extensive use of live radio, to terrifying effect). Following the live assault, the second cut here is a studio piece called ‘Latvian Classical Radio’, just as exciting and no less impactful, and laden with even more radio snippets (unless I hear wrong) creating many disorienting and exciting moments. This studio work dates from 2020 and he did for a radio programme of the same name, curated by Rihards T. Endriksons.
For listeners who enjoy abstraction, non-specific sounds, samples, feedback and pure electronic noise, step this way. From 21 September 2022.