Radiolaria (empreintes DIGITALes IMED 24190) is a superb suite of Buchla synth music composed and played by Ana Dall’ara-Majek, Parisian-born now living in Montreal. It began life as improvisations performed on the Buchla 200 – a 1970s model which probably induces frissons of excitement among vintage-synth buffs – when she was able to get her hands on its knobs and cables in Sweden. She used these recordings as “raw material” for the composition here, which has ended up as a very coherent compelling suite in eight parts. While sequestered in Sweden, she also clobbered the EMS night watchman with a cosh so she could break into a locked cabinet and start tinkering with an analogue spring reverb unit (frisson #2, see above). But no equipment fetishist she, rather the plan here is to create a plausible and sympathetic sound portrait of plankton and other microscopic forms of marine life. About time too – they’ve been neglected in experimental music for far too long, although Thomas Tilly has come close with his detailed field recordings of water-bound insects. Ana Dall’ara-Marek has evidently made some close studies of plankton if her well-informed liner notes are any indication, and each track is also the springboard for further avenues of exploration and thought – ideas about the environment, life-cycles, industrialisation…fascinating observations about movements in the water and preparing for a mighty wave, the sound of weird clicks under the ocean, the way that diatoms are so numerous that they colour the entire ocean and can be seen from outer space…phenomenal insights, and an excellent set of music, composed and realised with consummate care and skill, and distilled into a concise package of information. (02/04/2024)
Scottish performer Ben Chatwin with Verdigris (DIS-NTER DISCD001) – a set of eight synth instrumentals composed and played by him in his personal studio which he calls “The Vennel”. I’m unsurprised to learn he’s worked extensively in film, TV, media, dance and theatre – all the tunes here could plausibly be applied to moments of arthouse cinema or schlocky TV drama serials on ITV2. Using all the modular synths and samples at his disposal, Chatwin is certainly no experimental minimalist, rather he tries to fill every available space on the hard drive with his layers, pulses, beats, and signals. While admiring his technical proficiency on the machines, I quickly grew weary of the self-important mood, each tune veering from the portentous to the sentimental. (02/04/2024)
French player Bertrand Gauguet has been heard in these pages with his saxophones (sometimes amplified), but here on Encerclements (IN GIRUM IG-101) he turns in a suite of purely electronic music in eight parts and 47 minutes. It’s splendid stuff – brilliantly structured, and the work builds nicely, increasing in intensity and depth in the most unexpected ways, with lots of atmosphere and invention. His sound is lean and spare, only occasionally exploding into flourishes and sparkling energy when the occasion demands it. Gauguet has displayed similar restraint in his saxophone works, as I recall, be they solo or collaborative. Inside the digipak is a line of verse by Virgil, which translates into English as “going round in the night and being consumed by fire”; in the original Latin, it’s a palindromic sentence. This, and the fact that Bertrand Gauguet repeatedly calls attention to the “circular” structure in his titles, probably gives us a clue as to how Encerclements has been composed. Very good; a refreshing approach in an over-crowded field of experimentation. (02/04/2024)