Nice piece of voice-with-electronics improvisation by Sun Dog, the team of ErikM and Isabelle Duthoit. Col Des Tempètes (CRONICA ELECTRONICA 192-2022) comes to us from January 2022 and ErikM points out that it’s one in an informal series of such voice-collaborations he’s worked on, including ones with Phil Minton and Catherine Jauniaux. Duthoit comes to us from a classical music background and a conservatoire education, but has over time she has become a stock visage at experimental music festivals, even founding one of her own in 1995 (Fruits be Mhere). She’s used her vocal talents in a wide range of jazz and improv settings ever since. Title Col Des Tempètes may suggest a “stormy” session, but in fact Isabelle Duthoit’s murmurings are mostly quite restrained and sibilant, often mixed with wordless breath-heavy sounds and hissing moments, though not without a strong hint of menace. It’s as though she’s calling from a rather dark and cold place, perhaps having to connect to her own inner Medusa and letting the snakes fall where they may. A genius at reading the room, ErikM plays under-stated and respectful electronic sounds to accompany this lady’s vocalising, with sparing use of echo to treat the voice. A very simpatico collaboration. (10/10/2022)
Norwegian composer Jan Martin Smørdal here with his Kraftbalanse (SOFA 595), recorded in Oslo in 2019…at first glance a very contemporary piece of modern minimal chamber music, I thought, with the piano, four violins, two violas, a cello and a double bass, and photo of young musicians all dressed in black outfits. Certainly the sustained drones and gently-changing mixed chords, plus the elegant rise-and-fall structure, may indicate signs of a composer who’s been paying close attention to recent developments in modernism. In fact the aim here is to present “a musical translation of the hum from the mains”, i.e. the electricity supply. It’s a kinda conceptual work developed in conjunction with Øystein Wyller Odden, the visual artist, a fellow who’s been looking into the “sound” of the grid for some time, for instance his ‘Power Line Hum’ written for the organ. Your man Odden is au fait with fine art objects and installations, and composition too evidently. Kraftbalanse then translates as “Power Balance”, and models itself on the fluctuations of power supply. Apparently the mains hum hovers around 50 Hertz, but it may vary depending on how much power is being consumed in the market. Accordingly the piano here has been rigged up with transducers and plugged in, causing its strings and sounding board to resonate in the 50 Hz area. The same goes for the string players…well, they’re not plugged into the socket by their fingers and given 115 volts, but they were given voltmeters so they could monitor the changing frequency as they played the piece. The score includes instructions as to how they must behave as the frequency changes. As I write this, it can seems like a rather pointless piece of process art, but ah, listen to the music and you can’t help but be impressed – serene and beautiful, it’s also rather mysterious, prompting us to think it does indeed succeed to some extent in “exposing” an otherwise invisible force, inviting our bewonderment. Smørdal is co-leader of the excellent Ensemble neoN in Norway, whose records can do no wrong for us. Vinyl LP edition also available. (10/10/2022)
Ho-hum jazz record from Italian drummer Cristiano Calcagnile – Anokhi Inversi (WE INSIST! RECORDS CDWEIN21) is a Feb 2022 date with Giorgio Pacorig (piano) and Gabriele Evangelista (double bass). Competent but not very exciting; even the ‘Furioso’ track disappoints, a rather tame and polite entry in the free jazz catalogue, as if the players were too stiff to summon up the energy for real energy-jazz, and instead we get this lukewarm replica. Also calling a composition ‘Malware’ in 2023 is pretty cute, and that tune is full of clever chord changes, but the music is like background dinner lounge music, and is in no danger of infecting your computer anytime soon. (10/10/2022)
Nice vibrating drum set from Ingar Zach on Musica Liquida (SOFA 594). He did it in Oslo with three drums (snare, timpani, and gran cassa) and put a vibrating speaker on the kit so that we can enjoy those resonating membranes. I like the way he uses titles ‘Mercurio’ and ‘Vapore’ which suggest strongly that he sees himself as a Renaissance alchemist, transforming matter in his retorts and flasks. A lot of it has to do with the natural echo of the venue too, which in this instance is a mausoleum in Oslo, where our man happens to be gainfully employed by the Music Academy for a research project. Some unexpected effects result, he somehow contrives to play minimal melodies on top of all the resonating and rattling, and he plays for a long time across three tracks to give us the full “immersion” he’s hoping for. Quite nice work pitched roughly in the electro-acoustic improv area. But somewhere performances are lacking in tension, and not noisy or unpredictable enough for me. Zach has been weirder and made less ordinary sounds in his time. Besides the alchemy angle, Ingar Zach likens these performances to a “ceremony” and a “rhizomatic experience” – the latter remark may have something to do with folding and layers. (10/10/2022)