At the beginning of 2019, Cartsten Seiffarth at the Singuhr Projekte invited TAMTAM to develop a sound installation for the great hall at Berghain. This resulted in the work Eleven Songs – Halle am Berghain, which understood the installation space as an instrument. One consequence of this is that the individual pieces are not transferable to another medium. Nevertheless, TAMTAM prepared two of these eleven songs for a digital release in a two-channel format.
For Morton is a spectral drone made of precisely composed electric contrabass legato strokes. The piece sits like a static color in space, a pure atmosphere, while Tempelhofworks with the material that led to the version set in the installation space. For this release, TAMTAM mixed a new version of Tempelhof that preserves the installation’s tone but is compatible with a two-channel mix while creating links to TAMTAM’s previous release in Crónica, A100 (156~2020).
Der französische Komponist und Mehrfachinstrumentalist Bruno Duplant bringt mit “Sombre Miroirs” Ende des Monats ein neues Album und somit den zweiten Teil der im vorigen Jahr mit “Élégie du temps présen” (Granny Records) begonnen Trilogie heraus. In zwei auslandenden Soundscapes kreist Dupont wie beim Vorgänger um den Zustand der Welt – “planet, nature, humanity, civilizations, individuals” – und bringt in einem von soghaften Spannungsbögen, plötzlichen Eruptionen nicht selten harscher Art und evokativen Klangen geprägten “orchestral mise en abyme” eine pessimistische Sicht zum Ausdruck. Das Album erscheint auf CD und als Download bei Crónica, die bereits seine gemeinsame Arbeit mit Rutger Zuydervelt herausbrachten. Der abschließende Teil der Trilogie, “Insondables humeurs” soll ebenfalls dieses Jahr erscheinen.
Somehow this sounded like a familiar name, but I couldn’t find anything about him that I had written earlier. Morten Riis is from Denmark, where he works as a composer, sound artist and researcher. Amongst the things he does are large scale sound installations. He recorded the music on the cassette using homemade synthesizers and modified four-track cassette recorders. It is not said how the cassette recorders are modified, but perhaps it is a bit of nerd thought here. There is nothing significant scale about the music on this cassette. The sixteen pieces are pretty brief, ranging from one minute and thirty seconds to three minutes. That gives the cassette the idea of a sketchbook. None of these pieces sounds as if they are worked out, but rather a quick pencil drawing that happens to be quite detailed if you look/listen closer. Riis has that fine quality of a lo-fi musician in his music, with grainy textures, rough ambient, and mild noise. I guess the difference is that where many of his peers indulge in longer pieces, Riis keeps his music short. Another difference might be his use of synthesizers rather than field recordings or heavily treated sound sources. As such, he offers quite some variation in his music. Loop-like, drone-like, a bit louder, or a bit quieter. This tape, these sixteen pieces in about forty minutes, is a great sketchbook. (FdW)
The man has many releases to his name, and it is tough to put his music into one particular genre. There are times when I would have said that his music fits the world of ambient music, with a penchant for the lo-fo approach, but this work is something different altogether. There is no evidence of it, not on the cover of the information, but it sounds as if Duplant conducts a small ensemble. There seem to be wind and string instruments. There might also be some electronics. They are all used to playing some heavily controlled music, which has a very modern classical feel. Maybe Duplant played all of these instruments himself? Maybe this is all from an orchestral sample pack? I really have no idea. The title translates as ‘dark mirrors’, and Duplant says about the album, “a polished and reflective surface gives us the stable and sincere image of a subject. The subject here is the world today, both planet, nature, humanity, civilizations, individuals and possibly, probably the one of tomorrow, dark in my eyes & embittered in my heart”. That may explain some of the grim characters of the music. With everything under control, there is also a lot of tension buried in the music. Perhaps that is how Duplant sees the world? Dark and on the surface civilized, but beneath the pavement, there is unrest. I have no idea if that is the idea behind this orchestral suite that comes in two parts of exactly twenty-one minutes. While I may not be the biggest fan of contemporary classical music, I found this a pretty exciting release. Maybe because it raised many questions while sounding beautifully dark and ominous. (FdW)
Le nouvel album de Morten Riis s’apparente à une oeuvre fantôme, objet sonore construit autour de sensations auditives et de variations émotionnelles échappées d’un au-delà déconstruit, traversé de granit éclaté et de poussière concentrée.
Lad enhver lyd minde os om flotte au dessus de surfaces disloquées prêtes à s’évaporer, formes chancelantes à l’abstraction corrosive.
Morten Riis travaille la matière avec minutie, plongeant l’auditeur dans un oeil du cyclone aux courants regroupés sur eux-mêmes, vestiges de narrations passées et de lambeaux d’humanité dérivant dans un trou noir à la puissance ambient extatique. Absorbant. Roland Torres
Der in Dänemark lebende und als Klangkünstler, Komponist und Wissenschaftler tätige Morten Riis bringt sein erstes Solo-Release seit 2009 heraus. “Lad enhver lyd minde os om” wurde auf selbstgebauten Synthies produziert und mit modifizierten 4-Spur-Rekordern aufgenommen. Es erscheint digital und – mit Bonusmaterial – auf Tape bei Crónica, das Artwork basiert auf der Fotografie “Interior #12″ (2010) von Trine Søndergaard mit freundlicher Genehmigung der Künstlerin und der Martin Asbæk Gallery.
“Lad enhver lyd minde os om (Let every sound reminds us of) wreathes around our conceptions regarding a sense of togetherness, perishability, the inherent sensuousness of objects and potential poetic statements coupled with humans’ belief that through language and representation we can control everything around us. The album is composed on homemade synthesisers and modified 4-track cassette recorders, thus creating a music-technological poetic that underlines the specificity of media and the human-object participatory democracy that creates what we normally conceptualise as an artistic expression. It is a slow process in which several melodic elements are layered to create an expression in which the individual voices vanish in myriads of noise and textures. Behind the often-chaotic roaring sea of tape mediation, melodic structures emerge, like sunken forgotten memories in our minds.”
L’artiste sonore et compositeur lithuanien Gintas K sort, seize ans après son premier disque chez Crónica, l’excellent label portugais consacré aux musiques électroniques et expérimentales, Lèti, « Lent » en lithuanien. Onze titres de musique électronique à la fine granulation : regardez bien la pochette !
Clochettes, touches de synthétiseur : un clapotis, un tintinnabulement enchanteur, c’est “Bells”, surprenante vignette pastorale qui s’enfonce dans la touffeur des herbes électroniques. Vous y êtes ! Et ce n’est pas une “Hallucination” (second titre) désagréable. La musique gonfle, fait des bulles, danse imperceptiblement. De la musique pour des toiles d’Yves Tanguy. De petites toiles arachnéennes. Ce qui n’empêche pas l’envol de “Various”, synthétiseurs grondants et dramatiques, toute une cavalerie grandiose jamais pesante en effet, du Tim Hecker micro-dentelé, avec une belle stase onirique à la respiration sous-marine. Superbe travail !
Avec “Variation”, la musique devient borborygmes, boursouflures minuscules du matériau sonore : surgit un monde étrange près de s’engloutir. “Atmosphere” est au contraire saturé, débordant d’événements sonores qui se ralentissent, s’étalent autour de virgules ironiques sur fond de drones poussiéreux. Pas le meilleur titre, selon moi, ventre mou de l’album. Je préfère “Savage”, granuleux en diable, crapaud sonore pataugeant dans une bouillasse électronique vaguement monstrueuse, dont émerge une poussée formidable, pustuleuse de bruissements métalliques serrés, qui retourne à la vase lourde. “Guitar” ? Souvenir énigmatique d’un instrument fantôme, réduit à des griffures courtes, espacées, accompagnées de gribouillis balbutiés !
L’un des meilleurs titres de l’album, le miraculeux “Nice Pomp”, est d’une délicatesse confondante, ce qui n’exclut pas une belle force. Le foisonnement électronique est travaillé en couches à multiples facettes qui s’estompent avant un finale hoquetant. “Query”, à l’énigmatique beauté transparente, se charge peu à peu de poussées cascadantes d’orgue avant de retourner à un calme bucolique parsemée de fleurettes sonnantes : Gintas K est le maître de ces petites pièces précieuses ! L’avant-dernier titre, “Ambient”, s’inscrit parfaitement dans cette esthétique raffinée. Il associe jeux d’eau et nappes synthétiques légères, créant une sorte de jardin japonais sonore, apaisant et nimbé de mystère grâce à son chemin de drones amortis.
Le “Bonus Sound” conclut ce parcours par un hymne ambiant somptueux, feuilleté de frémissements, à la magnifique granulation électronique.
Indéniablement un grand disque, subtilement ciselé !
Med kun synths og kassettebåndoptagere har Morten Riis skabt et album, der med sine selvpålagte begrænsninger opnår en fascinerende dybde. Et album, der med meget få virkemidler siger virkelig lidt og på samme tid virkelig meget.
Små musikalske bidder driver ind og ud af det hørbare felt. Ringer ind, brummer, hviner, hvisler og ringer ud igen. For det meste støt op og ned som et åndedræt, med lejlighedsvise bratte ophold. Mere eller mindre påvirket af kassetteformatets inhærente båndstøj. Selv de mest tyste øjeblikke er underlagt denne summen. Jeg elsker den tilstedelighed, det afføder. Teksturerne er nærmest fysiske.
Albummet har en meget åben lyd. Den er minimalistisk, sommetider smuk. Men oftest er den der bare. Gør ikke megen væsen af sig på en utroligt tiltalende facon. Det ene øjeblik lyder det meget jordnært, det næste – sakralt. Riis leger med tyngde og lethed, og tyngdens lethed og lethedens tyngde på en måde, der synes at ophæve alle gængse relationer mellem dem. Som for eksempel nummeret »den støjende sol«, der i realiteten ikke spiller meget højere end resten af musikken, rent decibelmæssigt, men alligevel brager gennem højttalerne på hidtil uhørt maner.
Det er betagende, hvor rigt, dybt og bevægende et stykke musik, Riis har sammensat af så undseelige elementer. Hans stille støj er tavs som en skygge i hjørnet af et rum – og kraftfuld som skyggens skaber og ødelægger. Kristoffer Møllegaard
David Lee Myers, the composer of Reduced To A Geometrical Point, is quick to point out that he is not really a fan of “music for meditation”, although he has noticed that some audio constructions seem to encourage a position of staying in the moment. It is the simple truth of being “reduced to a geometric point in front of God”, a quote that harks back to the ideas of Frithjof Schuon, who in turn does not refer to a particular Judeo-Christian vision of a supreme being, but rather to any creative force of the universe, energy – in another word – which must necessarily exist. The sound and visual artist, resident in New York for many years, presents four pieces here, ranging in length from 12 to 18 minutes. He is an experienced experimentalist, with more than thirty releases to his name for labels such as Crónica, Starkland, Generator, ReR, Line, Silent, Pogus, RRRecords and Staalplaat, to name but a few. The overall effect of Myers’ hypnotic plots hark back to the tradition of North American repetitive minimalism, to that search for a pure sound that does not include a “before” and an “after” and that shuns overly rigid musical structures. The author thus clearly focuses on the “here and now”, on the simple event modelled in execution, on the essential vibrations and frequencies which, even if grandiose in some passages, never give the feeling of searching for deliberate elegiac models. It is a mass of sounds that moves slowly and the references to non-Western music are unavoidable, as in “GEO 1 Laurentia”, a special undulating and hoarse rāga, or in “GEO 2 Pannotia”, a spiritual track that seems to loop on itself. “GEO 3 Gondwana” is the darkest, most astral and at the same time most introverted track, before ending with “GEO 4 Pangaea”, again in the apotheosis of feedback, oscillator sets and multiprocessing. David Lee Myers once worked under the name Arcane Device and played as a guitarist in a rock band in the sixties. Later he was fascinated by feedback techniques, Frippertronics and the ambient music of Brian Eno. Here its application has reached an extreme rarefaction, marrying elegant minimalism with a contemplative approach. Aurelio Cianciotta
