ELISABETH FLUNGER & HANNES LÖSCHEL – AMEISEN AUF KLEINEN GEGENSTÄNDEN IN DER STRÖMUNG
SCHAUKELND (CD by Löwenhertz)
MATTHIAS MÜLLER – SOLO TROMBONE (CD by Mamü Music) *
KASPER T. TOEPLITZ – AMAS (CD by Pogus) *
THE MULLIGAN-BAKER PROJECT – MIXING MEMORY AND DESIRE (CD by WLJWC)
TENHORNEDBEAST – DEATH HAS NO COMPANION (CD by Cold Spring Records) *
SHIFT – ABANDON (CD by Cold Spring Records) *
LINGUA LUSTRA – MYST (CD by Where Ambient Lives) *
CARL LUDWIG HÜBSCH – ROWETOR (2CD by Tour de Bras) *
JARED SAGAR – HOLME (CD by Unfathomless) *
STROM NOIR – MAL’OVANE KVETY & XEROXOVE MOTYLE (CD by Zoharum) *
DIFFERENT STATE – MORE THAN MUSIC/IT CLEANS MY WOUNDS (2CD by Zoharum) *
MAKEMAKE – SOMETHING BETWEEN (CD by Zoharum) *
O YUKI CONJUGATE – TROPIC (LP/CD by Auf Abwegen)
VIRTARANTA-OKUDA-BERGER TRIO – NATURE OF SPINNING I (CDR by Zvocni Prepihi)
EMERALD SUSPENSION – DIVINATION (CD by Oscillation Productions) *
DIALECTICAL IMAGINATION – THE ANGEL AND THE BRUTE SING SONGS OF RAPTURE (USB in cassette)
ELISABETH FLUNGER & HANNES LÖSCHEL – AMEISEN AUF KLEINEN GEGENSTÄNDEN IN DER STRÖMUNG
SCHAUKELND (CD by Löwenhertz)
This one was recorded in September 1992 in Vienna! Some time ago. What made them decide to
release this one now? No idea. Anyway, this recording brings us back to the early days of the
musical careers of both musicians. Between 1990 and 1994 they collaborated with their project
‘Ameisen auf kleinen Gegenständen in der Strömung schaukelnd’ (Ants on Small Objects Swinging
on the Current), doing gigs in Austria and Italy. The music as heard on this release came into being
during a three-week stay in Civitella d‘Agliano (Italy). With this project both searched for an escape
route from their classical educations. In eight excursions they create rhythm-based, pulsating
works, aggressive and noisy at moments with an almost punk attitude. There is a connection with
minimal music as well, with composers like Thierry de Mey who composed for the ballet of De
Keersemaeker. But in the case of Flungel and Löschel there is also room for improvisation. We hear
Flunger playing percussion and Löschel on prepared piano. It is percussive music that abstracts
from melody and harmony, although melodic aspects are suggested in the title track as well as
other tracks on this album. Also at points we hear far echoes of Balinese gamelan music. But
above all I have to say this one still sounds very fresh and to the point what makes it a relevant
release. (DM)
––– Address: http://www.loewenhertz.at/
MATTHIAS MÜLLER – SOLO TROMBONE (CD by Mamü Music)
The trombone isn’t the most likely of instruments when it comes to solo improvising; no doubt
the resemblance to flatulent sounds is part of that. And yet ever since hearing ‘A Third Trombone’
by Phill Niblock (first as background music to Brian Eno interview, then the actual piece of LP in
the mid 80s), I have fondness of the instrument. The music from Matthias Müller is not alike that
of Niblock, as this is all improvised and not as composed as Niblock’s. To record the three pieces
on ‘Solo Trombone’ Müller went back to the village where he grew up and learned the trombone in
a ‘local trombone choir’ and in the St. Lambertus Kirche he did the actual recording. All in a single
day and I assume without any overdubs but perhaps with the help of a couple of microphones to
capture the spatial character of the church. In these three pieces Müller explores the sound of the
trombone, and nothing else. There are no objects playing on the body, no amplification, just the
instrument itself, and it’s all to do with the mouth being used to play it. Short, long, sustaining
or cut short and in ‘Bell’ the emphasis on the sustaining and leads to a beautiful result. Though
in the other pieces there are bits of hectic it is something that Müller doesn’t use a lot. Not unlike
Kyle Motl’s CD last week, who had a solo CD of solo improvisations on the contrabass, Müller’s
improvising is some conservative, but then also in much longer pieces. I am not sure (actually
never am) what the reason is for doing a solo improvised CD, but if the idea is to send out a calling
card for other people to come and play along, I am sure he doesn’t need that, as Müller already has
an excellent reputation in that field, playing with Ignaz Schick, Torsten Papenheim, Attacca, The
Astronomical Unit, Olaf Rupp and Foils Quartet. But perhaps a solo CD he felt was missing in his
discography and as such he delivered a great presentation of what he can do in that field. (FdW)
––– Address: http://matthiasmueller.bandcamp.com
KASPER T. TOEPLITZ – AMAS (CD by Pogus)
Many of the works that are available by French composer Kasper T. Toeplitz are released on his
own Sleaze Art label but ‘Amas’ is released by US imprint Pogus. The word ‘Amas’ is from the verb
‘to amass’, accumulate, heap, pile, or even cluster. For this piece he plays long electronic parts,
stored on the computer and the idea was to make it sound like the “ideas from the West Coast
school of music: in building the ‘engines’ which produce sounds the shaping of the sounds is
rather made by modulations and adding harmonic (by distortion or rather wave shaping) than
the more ‘classical’ (East Coast) method of using filtering”, as outlined by Don Buchla. It is not a
fixed composition per se, but a living organism, which could go many ways. The whole piece lasts
close to seventy-two minutes and I must admit I am not sure if I understand that whole East/West
Coast thing. In the first half of this piece there are indeed a lot ‘engines’, mainly of low end drone
sound, slowly picking up more and more ‘engines’, creating a very rich texture of drone sounds,
white static, pure hiss and such a like, and in true Toeplitz’ style it all becomes quite loud.
Sometimes it sounds like a real engine revving up until it cuts out half way through the piece.
From then on, until the end of the piece, the music gradually becomes quieter and the final ten
or so minutes are on the threshold of hearing. I can imagine this being an excellent live piece and
that a full on volume is required, perhaps more than one can realize at home (well, not this home).
Something keeps nagging me and that’s the fact that this piece is a living organism; which means,
I guess, that this is just one of the many mixes possible and as such maybe is more a piece of
improvised music? What if Toeplitz performs another great version of this next week, that
surpasses this one, will that replace this one? With the release of a CD it becomes carved in time,
a fixed piece in time, but I could help thinking that given the musical source material that went
into this, more would have been possible. It is fine, solid Toeplitz work, and surely something
that will appeal to his die-hard fans but is perhaps not his finest work to date. (FdW)
––– Address: http://www.pogus.com
THE MULLIGAN-BAKER PROJECT – MIXING MEMORY AND DESIRE (CD by WLJWC)
Projects like these are always tricky. How to make a relevant tribute to jazz giants? What makes it
a worthwhile try? Just copying original performances is not the way, and in contradiction with what
jazz is all about: freedom. Of course jazz musicians are conscious of this, as is the case with this
Amsterdam-based quartet of Jan Willem van der Ham (baritone sax), Felicity Provan (trumpet),
Raoul van der Weide (bas) and George Hadow (drums). They make homage to the quartet of Gerry
Mulligan and Chet Baker from the early 50s, the days of cool jazz, and one of the most famous jazz
outfits ever. The line-up of this project is identical with the Gerry Mulligan-Chet Baker Quartet. Their
tribute was an initiative of Provan and van der Ham. From what motives I don’t know. Van der Ham
who played with illustrious ensembles like Hoketus and Loos, and also with JC Tans Orchestra and
Sean Bergin’s MOB, makes a return to (classical) jazz with this project after playing for years in
classical ensembles. They choose for a mixed approach. They do a few originals from Baker and
Mulligan. Some of them played fairly straight. Others are taken as point of departure for some up
to date free improvisations. Thirdly they play of few compositions by van der Ham that
accommodate well with the material by the masters. Van der Weide and Hadow make up a fine
and subtle playing rhythm section. This results in an intelligent and respectful play with traditional
material, opening it for free improvised excursions. Creating possibilities that were unthinkable in
the days of Baker and Mulligan. (DM)
––– Address: http://www.toondist.nl/WLJWC
TENHORNEDBEAST – DEATH HAS NO COMPANION (CD by Cold Spring Records)
SHIFT – ABANDON (CD by Cold Spring Records)
Like I said last week, music needs the right occasion to be played, and while the weather isn’t as
hot anymore as last week, surely it is summer time. I am inside the house (that’s not strange),
listening to three lengthy pieces of music by TenHornedBeast, also known as C. Walton, and of
whom I didn’t hear before, as his three previous releases where reviewed by someone else (see
also Vital Weekly 605, 679 and 745. Walton was also part of Endura in the past. So with a full
summer assault, I am listening to the somewhat grim music that comes under the banner of
‘Death Has No Companion’. It is hard to say what kind of instruments are played here; it might
be a piano, but the tones of the instruments are sufficiently bent over and backwards, fed through
many plug ins so that a suppressed tonal twang in very slow motion is left over; the result is fed
through a line of reverb units, labelled ‘the dungeon’, ‘the caves’ and ‘the cathedral’; much space
as it is. Opening and closing those reverb units is what makes the music here, but there is some
great tension built. I’d love to write here ‘great horror movie soundtrack stuff’, but with the slow
development over the course of say seventeen to twenty-three minutes you could wonder in
which movie they would use this sort of long passages. It works however well as music that
stands by itself. Spooky stuff, of course, nothing for the weak of heart or mind, unless you
decide to surrender and let yourself be transported to the land of beyond. Excellent stuff, I’d
say, but best served on a long cold winter’s night and in a completely dark room.
Which might also be the best thing to do with the release by Swedish ‘death industrial’ act
Shift. The four pieces were recorded over a period of ten years by Shift, with the help of ‘Aspa,
Clark, Kokkonen, Setthammar and Simonsson’ as they are indicated on the cover here, and the
four pieces are slow and heavy. There is the screaming vocal bit of ‘To Rid Them All And To wash
Their Filth From My Body’, the opening blast here of eleven minutes, along with slow pounding
drum and feedback wail in the background, the burning distortion of ‘Nothing – No One’, in which
everything seems controlled by overload and distortion boxes. ‘Recaptured’ the shortest piece is
a monochrome blast of one loud drone, distorted guitars and is basically one stroke of black paint
smeared on the canvas. It is followed by the final episode of this nightmare (which I mean quite
positive, as I have been enjoying myself so far quite a bit) and that’s ‘Armed, Disturbed, Hostile’,
perhaps the most rock-like outing on this CD. A turntable produces some crackling sound, there
might be a synth but the repeating bang on the kit and a guitar playing a chord over and over
again effectively makes the piece. Then somewhere everything doubles up, there is feedback and
some screaming vocal from the metal corner of the musical spectrum. At nineteen minutes one
could wonder is this is perhaps very short of very long, but for me exactly the right length. If
wasn’t exhausted by heat outside, then this efficiently the last of my energy. I am cleansed and
should go to sleep. (FdW)
––– Address: http://www.coldspring.co.uk
LINGUA LUSTRA – MYST (CD by Where Ambient Lives)
Wasn’t there some kind of computer game with the same title, many years ago? Maybe I am wrong,
as I must admit I never studied computer games in my entire life (and also something that won’t
happen in the future either). It is also the title of the new album by Lingua Lustra (actually I am
not sure what that name means), also known as Albert Borkent from The Netherlands, who was
inspired by the mist along the Dutch coastal area. Maybe even taping a bit of field recording here
and there. The previous release by him I heard was back in Vital Weekly 1041, but he has many
more since he started out in 2005, released by Databloem, Spiritech, Anodize, Lagerstätte,
Spherical Records and Psychonavigation. In the previous review I wrote I have no idea if his music
is made with analogue or digital means, or if it in fact uses any synthesizers, but maybe all field
recordings, heavily processed to sound like synthesizers. On this new release there are three
pieces and more than before I’d say that these are synthesizers, certainly in the first two shorter
pieces, with it’s somewhat faster moving progression on what I think are the synthesizer sounds,
especially when chord are played in the first part, which also has a bit of voices. In the twenty-six
minute third part of ‘Myst’ however I was hearing sea waves rolling ashore inside the rumble of
misty waves. This is all quite dark and drone-based, but Lingua Lustra’s music is not about staying
in the same stream (to keep the coastal analogy) all the time. By slowly changing filters he alters
the sounds and does with steady pace, so that one drifts along with the progress of the piece.
Maybe the third part was a bit too long for my taste, and I preferred the slightly quicker build-ups
of the first two and have a few more of those ‘quicker’ ones. But also the third one was not bad
at all. This is the perfect soundtrack for a quiet afternoon at home with a good book; or simply
to close one’s eyes and meditation. (FdW)
––– Address: http://whereambientlives.bandcamp.com
CARL LUDWIG HÜBSCH – ROWETOR (2CD by Tour de Bras)
On the website of Tour de Bras there is an explanation of this project: “ROWETOR is a musical
concept inspired by the guitar player Keith Rowe. The aim of the piece is to explore one static
sound in the ensemble, to maintain it and in the same time interact with utmost care and open-
ness for any necessary change”, and during two nights in 2015 and 2016 (September 30 and
June 3), Carl Ludwig Hübsch, armed with his tuba, gathered a bunch of people on stage at the
famous jazz club The Loft, in Cologne, Germany, to perform this. Maybe it’s something he did
before, seeing this is ‘Rowetor 03’ and ‘Rowetor 04’? In the latter we have thirteen players,
mostly names I didn’t recognize, and in the first we have two more players, of which I only
recognized the names Sharif Sehnaoui on acoustic guitar and Phlip Zoubek on piano (but I admit
I didn’t search the entire history of Vital Weekly for each individual player). Hübsch gets credit for
the composition and the mix; hence he’s listed here in the header of the review. I am not sure to
what extent it is actually composed, or whether there are a bunch of guidelines along which the
players can act and have freedom to play. ’03’ is thirty-three minutes and ’04’ is forty-two
minutes. In both of these pieces time moves very slowly and individual instruments are blurred
in the bigger picture. It is very hard to recognize in here, say, an acoustic guitar, bass, alto clarinet,
low percussion, viola d’amore on ‘movement (inaudible)’ as played by Phuong Bui. Everything
buzzes and sustains, but it moves; there is no question of a standstill. Upon close inspection,
there is more happening ‘Rowetor 03’ than in ‘Rowetor 04’, but I must admit I seemed to enjoy
the long quiet second half of the latter better. Everything becomes dark and spooky, like some-
thing big is going to happen, but all it does it build a mild crescendo towards the end, and then
a gentle fade out. ‘Rowetor 04’ had an almost sine wave character most of the times, whereas
‘Rowetor 03’ sounded more orchestral in approach. It is not a bad piece, far from it, as this is
cloud of sound passing over, dark and ominous, but in terms of preference I’d go for ‘Rowetor
04, with it’s suppressed suspension. It could have fitted on a single CD but it makes sense to
do it on two. (FdW)
––– Address: http://tourdebras.com/
JARED SAGAR – HOLME (CD by Unfathomless)
So far Jared Sagar has eleven album available, but all in the digital domain, and was as such not
reviewed in these pages before. Check out Discogs where to find these. Sagar is from the UK,
and I am not sure if he is from the area where he did the recordings for ‘Holme’, being Holme-
next-to-sea, Norfolk, as I read in the information that “Due to being on a very tight budget all
these sounds were recorded onto a Tascam DR-05, a portable, lightweight, handheld device, and
then arranged with computer software”, so what would he bring if the budget would be bigger?
Although much of this sounds like the recordings ‘as they are’, Sagar writes that there is some
manipulation, among others of using long drone sounds from wind and the distant sea. I have
not been to this area in the UK, and although the weather conditions right now call for a holiday,
it will have to wait, but being to coastal shores before, in various countries, the sound of the wind,
sea, birds, the crackling of bush as the wind goes through it, it all sounds familiar here. It recalls
holidays that are kept in the family photo album, early pages, in black and white, but that’s just
a private observation on my behalf when hearing this music. I can imagine for other people there
will other observations to be made. Sagar’s thirty-five minute composition is one of on-going
sound events, the drone in the background as it were, and more collage-like bits of top. While
those cut in, appear for a while, and cut or fade out, the rest stays on course and sometimes
all of this stops and something else starts. The flow is quite gentle in this piece; nothing is
overtly abrupt or strange here. It is a piece of music that consists of snapshots of the area and
one sees some connecting lines on these pages. Perhaps not too surprising but clearly made
with a love and knowledge for the area. (FdW)
––– Address: http://unfathomless.net
STROM NOIR – MAL’OVANE KVETY & XEROXOVE MOTYLE (CD by Zoharum)
DIFFERENT STATE – MORE THAN MUSIC/IT CLEANS MY WOUNDS (2CD by Zoharum)
MAKEMAKE – SOMETHING BETWEEN (CD by Zoharum)
If I am not mistaken the title means ‘Painted Flowers & Xeroxed Butterflies’, which is actually the
title of the second part of five pieces here. The first part is called ‘Against A Dwarf’. Both of these
parts were originally intended for separate cassette releases and recorded sometime apart. The
first part was recorded between August 2015 and March 2016, wheras the second from January
to August 2011, so we have some fine insight in the development of Strom Noir, Slovakian Emil
Matko, whose work was reviewed before (Vital Weekly 1023, 971, 921, 837, 708, 672 and 599)
and many of these are from the world of drones, ambient and atmospheric music. This new work
is not different and it delves from the same mines as before. In the five most recent pieces the
drones are omnipresent, sometimes it seems at a state of stasis, such as in the fifteen minute
‘Against A Dwarf’; keys pressed down but coloured with the use of sound effects, it creates the
image of a church organ being played. There is, so it seems, in all of these pieces very little room
for something else, field recordings to provide an extra layer of sound, but it seems Strom Noir
wants to presents us with some elegant sounds, to be used for some meditation. The five older
pieces have these extra sounds, even a bit of percussion in what is the title piece here, but also a
tad darker than the recent excursions; perhaps a little bit grittier, I was thinking. It is a matter of
taste whether you like the ‘old’ or the ‘new’ Strom Noir sound. I found it hard to make to make
my mind here, as I enjoy both directions. Therefore it was best for me to put it on shuffle and
enjoy both in equal amounts.
On a double CD we find a re-issue of two releases previously only available as a CDR, one
released in 2005 by Requiem Records and one by 0v0 Art Records in 2006. Different State was
on the first CD Marek Marchoff, responsible for recording, mixing and mastering, and on the
second disc a trio of Laura Marchoff (‘angelik voice), Marek X. Marchoff (foundation) and Darklight
In My Eye (soul), which may not be a lot to go by. Vital Weekly previously reviewed some of their
work (see Vital Weekly 776 and 861, yet not the two works presented here. From the two I
reviewed one, and wasn’t blown away by the singing, too gothic, too commercial, but let’s see
how things with time passed. The first disc combined illbient rhythms (is that actually a term
people still use?), guitar playing and some vocals from the wishing well (deep and dark and
supposedly spooky) and all of that didn’t work for me very well, I must admit. It was all a bit
tedious. The second disc was sophisticated, slick, maybe even in some way commercial, but it
worked quite well. Much more production value on the music, trippy rhythms and ditto electronics,
vocal snippets sampled from diverse sources and perhaps a bit of sung vocals here and there; I
thought this was much more enjoyable than the other CD in the package and that apparently in
the space of one year there was a remarkable progress in the development of Different State
(indeed a different state altogether I thought). Maybe not entirely my kind of music, but I found
all of this highly pleasant music. Dancing is a state I am never found in (well, not a lot actually),
but these danceable, dark beats, obscure sources and tinkling synths worked for me very well.
Pleasantly obscured.
And at the end there is a CD by Makemake, the duo of Raisi Blacha (prepared guitar,
electronics) and Lukasz Marciniak (guitar, electronics), who present their second release here,
following the unheard cassette ‘From The Earth To The Moon’. This new album was recorded in
October of last year, live in Wroclaw, using nine microphones all over the room. Their first release
was all free improvisation but this new one contains ‘open compositions’ “in which there tangent/
joint points, and the rest is built around improvisation”. I must admit it all sounds highly
improvised to me anyway; whatever compositional planning there was. When Makemake go into
a drone mode, using e-bows to play sustaining guitars it sounded quite good, such as in ‘A-bow’,
but I am less convinced by the pieces that sound like two people improvising on a guitar; one with
objects like brushes on the strings, the other strumming a chord or plucking a string. Somewhere
half way through improvised music and the rockist agenda of the avant-garde, I’d say, a middle
ground that I don’t hear a lot anymore these days, and maybe people still do that kind of music
and I am not an active listener anymore. I thought it lacked tension for me; I wish I could spend
more attention to it, but I noticed my mind wandering off all the time, finding it hard to concen-
trate on this. I would believe that in a concert situation this would work much better. (FdW)
––– Address: http://zoharum.com
O YUKI CONJUGATE – TROPIC (LP/CD by Auf Abwegen)
A few weeks ago I saw an announcement of a new LP/CD by O Yuki Conjugate on some newsfeed,
blog, list and it filled me with much joy. This is a group, in case it slipped from your memory, or by
way of introduction, that has been around since the early 80s and ever since have developed their
own refined ambient sound, more often than not spiced with a fine brand of percussion. Going
through various incarnations, but with Andrew Hulme and Roger Horberry as core members the
group is still a going concern, as well as spawning many off-shoots in the past (A Small Good
Thing, Spoke, Alp and The Sons Of Silence), but unlike the good ol’ days they are not as active
anymore, so the last time around I heard something from them was their 25th anniversary release,
a CD and DVD for Soleilmoon, which was reviewed in Vital Weekly 717. This new LP (it’s on also on
CD) does not contain new material but ‘lost, forgotten and unreleased’ material the group recorded
in 1994-95, around the time they were working on ‘Equator’, for some their best work ever. These
newly found pieces were reworked by Horberry and Hulme (but played by the 1994-95 line up of
the group when there were five of them) and have that classic trademark O Yuki Conjugate sound.
‘Dirty ambient’ as they call it themselves and it has all the right ingredients; the slow enveloping
synths forming refined masses of drone sounds, the tribalesque percussion bits, looped
instruments such as flutes, saxophones and electronics provide an excellent atmosphere.
Sometimes elegantly soft but it can also be forceful in the use of drums, or powerful in the use
of drones, mildly piercing your ears. Each side has one title, but it’s made from various smaller
pieces (‘songs’ one could call this), moving through various textures and shapes; hazy, clear,
light, dark and everything and everyone anywhere. It never has that ambient house feel that was
much in demand in the mid 90s, not any hi-hats and 4/4 bass drums, but off beat rhythms,
thoughtful experimentation, fine moods, ethnic percussion and dark waves. O Yuki Conjugate
back then went their own way and that’s what made (and make) them unique to these days.
Should the next Sunday be a quiet day, one devoted to my two favourite activities, reading and
listening to music, and then it is very likely it will be an all O Yuki Conjugate day. Can’t wait! (FdW)
––– Address: http://www.aufabwegen.com
VIRTARANTA-OKUDA-BERGER TRIO – NATURE OF SPINNING I (CDR by Zvocni Prepihi)
An astonishing unit of three musicians, who were so far unknown to me: Rieko Okuda (viola, voice),
Antti Virtaranta (double bass) and Jaka Berger (prepared drum set); a very international line up.
Initiator Rieko Okuda is from Japan where she was classically trained as a pianist. Later she moved
to the States, learning jazz and improvisation. She played with Marshall Allen (Sun Ra Arkestra),
Calvin Weston and a.o. Nowadays she lives in Berlin, a hotspot for improvised music. Also Antti
Virtaranta, a Swedish-born Finn, lives and works in Berlin. Berger is a central force in the Slovenian
underground scene. No idea how these three met, but is a good thing they did. The three players
have a good chemistry. The trio explores the categories of the minimal and small in improvisation.
With this starting point in mind, they maximize possibilities with a beautiful result of some very
profiled improvisations. And in a great recording too (at Radio Student Ljublana). The CD
consists of three improvisations, all carrying the same name; ‘Spin 1’, ‘Spin 2’ and ‘Spin 3’. All
three improvisations, start from a repeated or cyclic pattern, that changes constantly. Gradually
the interaction intensifies, and some magic moments occur, especially in the third movement.
Whirling music, evoking trance-like effects. It leaves me wondering and asking myself what I just
witnessed. It is one of those records of improvised music that make me realize there are still new
corners to be discovered. An excellent work, released by the Slovenian label Zvočni prepihi! (DM)
––– Address: http://zvocniprepihi.bandcamp.com/
EMERALD SUSPENSION – DIVINATION (CD by Oscillation Productions)
It’s been a long, long time since I reviewed ‘Playing The Market’ by Emerald Suspension. That was
back in Vital Weekly 511, more than eleven years ago, and Discogs still lists that their (?) only
release. Although, their… I am sure it’s a one-person project though, just by judging the music,
even when there is a list of ‘guest voice talent’. The previous release was about the stock market,
where source material was taped, and perhaps now it’s all about the divine? One could think so,
judging by the opening piece ‘Call To Prayer’, but it is not clear in every track. The plunderphonics
from before are still a feature here, but perhaps more Public Works than Tape-beatles, if you get
my drift. There is quite a bit of drum machine sounds used here, along with electronics, snippets
of sounds; sometimes there is that Cabaret Voltaire/Clock DVA feeling in these beats, yet it is not
something that Emerald Suspension uses in every piece, but in every piece he tries to make it
sound like a song like, even it is perhaps a bit more abstract, such as in ‘Fear Of Flying’, the longest
piece and not a winner. The music from Emerald Suspension works best when there is a bit more
voices used, that add a narrative to the electronic sound collages, or to the industrial, trippy beats
of the music, as in ‘The Way That She Prayed – Money Changers’, including one of those guest
singers (perhaps most notable in this piece also). There is an odd difference between the volume
levels of some of these pieces; a very quiet ‘Six Feet Closer’ follows the loud ‘Mildred Pierce/Millard
Filmore’, which from the music could have been much louder. It doesn’t sound like it is intended
to be this quiet, with its beats and all. I thought it all sounded quite interesting but it was not
something that throughout enjoyed me that much. ‘Yeah, right, not bad, you know, but does it
stick? Probably not’ could be a verdict, but that sounds, I guess, quite harsh, too harsh even. If
you like your pop spiced with some conspiracy theory voices, CIA and Morse code, then this is
certainly that needs investigation. (FdW)
––– Address: http://www.emeraldsuspension.com
DIALECTICAL IMAGINATION – THE ANGEL AND THE BRUTE SING SONGS OF RAPTURE (USB in cassette)
Dialectical Imagination is Eli Wallace (piano) and Rob Pumpelly (drums). Their name suggests a
program or paradigm. Making use of oppositions. One thing is opposed with another, and both
synthesize into something else on another level, that again be opposed with something, etc.
We will see if we recognize a bit of this in their music. Wallace is a New York-based musician,
playing rock, jazz and classical music, which is reflected in his playing on this duo-effort. Pumpelly
plays bassoon and guitar in rock as well as classical settings. But is also a very accomplished and
fascinating drummer as this release reveals. Both Wallace and Pumpelly were part of the Bay Area
group Will Redmond’s Transcontinental Blow-Up Telethon. And ‘The Angel and the Brute Sing Song
of Rapture’ is their first statement as a duo. The album comes on a faux audiocassette tape which
is actually a USB flash drive. They define their music correctly as ‘ecstatic music’, “which radically
integrates the creative spirit of free-improvisation with the structural integrity of composition”.
Their music clearly makes allusions to classical chamber music, especially through the patterns,
quotes, etc. by Wallace. Also the music is often very romantic and lyrical, and a bit over the top
for me at moments, as in the case of the lyrical piano playing in ‘Refusing Confusion’. But this is
part of their play with contrasts, I think. This is evident in a piece like ‘Sky in Eye, Free of ‘I’, that
starts conventional but ends up in a dynamic battle with equal intense playing by both musicians,
where it is difficult to say who is following who. Also in ‘Rungs’ both musicians play parallel some
very dynamic, interacting solos. They love to make big gestures, which makes their music
sometimes a bit pompous or majestic, also because they are not afraid of ornaments and clichés.
But in the end this is very adventurous music, because of the procedures they improvise. Yes, two
intelligent musicians who depart from a clear musical view and succeed in creating unique moments.
(DM)
––– Address: http://dialecticalimagination.bandcamp.com/