Very extreme minimalist experiment on A Falling Sound (INSUB. RECORDS insub.rec.cd26), a two-disc set from the team of Jacques Demierre and Martina Brodbeck. Swiss composer and pianist Demierre wants to “question the experience of measurement”, and the two long pieces here are just two examples of a much larger piece of research, which may have started life as “a recording of a piano tuning session”. Brodbeck was brought in to contribute her cello work, in a manner that appears to have been derived from the singing of Pandit Pran Nath, the famous Sufi singer who mentored La Monte Young.
I like the idea of thinking big – the first disc is called ‘About a Thousand Years”, indicating that Jacques Demierre works on a scale that causes vertigo to us mere mortals – but there isn’t quite enough musical information to let us perceive the parameters of the conundrum, let along engage with it. For a work that purports to deal with the theme of “measurement”, it would help if the composition had a sense of scale or dimension, but all we get is nebulous vapour for a long time. That said, the constantly repeated tiny stabs of piano and cello notes is deliciously irritating. (06/06/2024)