Phil Maguire
faint red / pencil lines
IRELAND FARPOINT RECORDINGS FP097 CD (2024)
Scots-born Maguire scuttled across our retinas like a fleet-footed microbe around 2018-2019, when he surfaced with many intriguing minimal sound cassettes issued on his own Verz Imprint label, and sometimes guesting on like-minded micro-labels to stain their spools with his low-key emissions. Even then I had the feeling this lower-case, computer-hungry reduction-player wouldn’t be happy until he’d found a way of making an even more minimal statement than those previous hermetically-sealed isolation-tank specials, whose only trace I can now find on my own memory banks is equally indiscernible, like two digits of code buried at the end of a very long log file on the hard drive.
For today’s item I can see things have gone upscale and upmarket, packaging-wise, and the splendid Irish label Farpoint have seen fit to create a six-panel book thing to house the CD (not far apart from the sort of thing we used to get from Touch and Ash International), with full-colour artworks a departure from the usual ambiguous grey smudges and blurs, albeit the colours are very muted. 150 copies of this nice-to-handle package were made. Additionally it’s been realised at a proper audio laboratory of the type hopefully frequented by academics and scientists following in the IRCAM traditions. The Sonic Arts Research Centre in Belfast welcomed Maguire with open circuits as he wheeled in his synthesiser and computer, as did the Pauline Oliveros Sound Studio (yes, there is a facility named after this Deep Listening goddess) in Cork.
Well, the starting point for this work – the two parts are titled ‘Untitled #1 (Morning)’ and ‘Untitled #0 (8)’ – is something I can relate to, when Maguire found himself staring at a painting and became fixated by a tiny detail. The painting was by Agnes Martin, and he himself would be happy to recount the detail that sent his eyes and brain wandering off on their voyage into the Beyond, but the relevant process is something to do with glimpsing infinity, while simultaneously shrinking yourself down to the size of an atomic particle. This personal epiphany Maguire now attempts to express in sound. What you get is two minimal, unvarying drones – well, more like machine-humming episodes – that last for 25 mins apiece. In contextualising his work, something he does very well with a slew of words, directions, and intellectual sleight of hand, Maguire insists that the work isn’t “about” anything, has no start or finish, is intended as an immersive experience, and in the final analysis is really nothing but sound, as if he were determined to refuse sublimation at any price. He also asks us to “experiment with listening as a creative act”, an injunction I seem to have heard before in similar terms from other minimalists who hand us their CD and tell us to play it loud in the dark with no distractions for 18 months solid, and seem to think they’re creating something of potentially infinite value thereby – no two playbacks the same.
For some reason, I’m not feeling any of this on today’s spin – Maguire is serious, intelligent, and a very distinct creator, but I can’t find enough substance here to engage with. It lacks force, presence, and doesn’t exactly exert itself on duration either – La Monte Young won’t be losing any sleep. Nor can I perceive how it corresponds to the original thought process or stare-at-a-painting epiphany he is at such pains to convey. Conversely, I see Stephen Fruitman of Avant Music News has discovered something “huge” and “profound” in these drones, whereas to me faint red / pencil lines feels cramped and insignificant. Frans de Waard sees Maguire as “an essential part” of a process involving not just this record, but all the variations of minimal drone music he knows so well (and has helped to create himself), and declares himself firmly on Team Phil – “this is my kind of music”. Unlike Frans, I can’t connect this empty sound with any past or present achievements in the genre, and despite all the ambitions and intentions behind it, no transcendence has been reached. Impossibly dull, today, but I hope it may emerge as something more profound in the future. (29/11/2024)