Kaspar T. Toeplitz
Érosions Programmées
FRANCE AKOUSIS RECORDS AK005 C.D. (2023)
Refreshing output here from a relatively new Parisian label, yet already having avant luminaries such as John Tilbury, Xavier Charles and Bertrand Gauguet on its books. And it’s with the latter composer/saxophonist that Polish/French composer Kaspar chose to chair a brainstorming session (or two) which eventually bore fruit with the “Érosions…” set.
His remit was to give monophonic saxophones more of a polyphonic vocab, with, in this case, the baritone and alto undergoing electronic modifications from a ‘real time’ standpoint. The work (shorn of the soft, comfy cushioning of post-production) was unveiled on the fourth of October, 2022 at “La Muse en Circuit” (Centre National de Creation). It’s a piece that at close to forty-seven minutes in duration is somewhat of a sideways departure from Kaspar’s c.v., where superbass-ed expansions and down tuned mood swings (see SleazeArt/Clystere), occupied most of the column space. Instead, after the initial white noise of what appears to be the death throes of a giant lung, more forgiving tonal colours push through in the form of long, siren-like frequencies, which sound, at times, almost orchestral.
But, by the time the credits roll, Adophe Sax’s offspring has undergone so many plastic surgery procedures (in the form of pitch modifications and textural alterations) as to be almost unrecognisable. So much so that one can’t help thinking that Kaspar has leapt aboard a process which surely (?) can’t be taken any further, unless things really go widescreen. Perhaps the massed ranks of Urban Sax or some similarly inspired outfit would be amenable to a collaboration?