Øyvind Brandtsegg’s “Nancarrow Biotope†reviewed by The Wire
“GML Variations†reviewed by Vital Weekly
The Robotic Gamelan of Casa de Musica is just as cool as you’d imagine it is. In fact, Google it right now. Check out some photos of the thing, then meet me back here… see, isn’t that a neat thing? Gamelans are cool… robots are cool… and so a robotic gamelan is very cool. Pedro Tudela and Miguel Carvalhais are the composers behind @c and the Cronica label. In 2018, they were commissioned to write a piece called “GML 123†for the Robotic Gamelan to play; their generative digital composition activated the gamelan and introduced new sounds into the space. This album includes that piece and also four studio-created variations (the title is quite literal) and a coda. Because this is, essentially, the same piece repeated a few times, I found that it works better listened to one track at a time rather than all in one sitting. The pace and density remain similar from start to finish, which suggested to me that “GML Variations†is better considered as a collection of individual pieces than an hour+ single experience. But gamelan music is just so lovely, listening to the ringing percussion steadily morph into elongated digital smearing tones is a lot of fun. The 4th variation is my favourite; it’s the most removed from its recognizable source, 30 minutes of slow liquid volleys with hints of ringing bells and reverberant acoustic space. (HS)
via Vital Weekly
“Submerge-Emerge†reviewed by Vital Weekly
Jos Smolders was inspired to write “Submerge- Emerge†by a teenage encounter with an 1897 poem called “Un Coup de des Jamais N’Abolira le Hasard†by Stephane Mallarme. As art tends to do when a receptive kid encounters it for the first time, the poem stuck with Smolders for decades afterwards. He continued to think about it, wrestling with the poem’s meaning and the effect that it had on him. In 2016, he decided to write a piece of music based on the poem. Now, writing experimental-type music based on a poem is, generally speaking, a silly thing to do. You’ve no doubt heard endless academic pretentious tape-and-voice nonsense music based on poems. Smolders, though, has long used language as inspiration for his music, and always with a uniquely personal perspective. He’s also a thoughtful enough composer to not fall into any cliché traps. “Submerge – Emergeâ€, then, is one of the most exciting and beautiful albums of his career, one that I’ll keep returning to long after this review is written. The album is more about the poem’s themes and ideas than simply a sonic backing to recited text. There are long stretches with no words at all… just shimmering pools of synthesizer tones, cavernous drones and field recordings of boats, beaches, and water (an element reflected from the poem’s water imagery). The album is lovely and engaging… episodes (labelled as “interludes†and “platesâ€, implying parts of a book) seem to comment on one another, working both individually and as a flowing whole. There’s a lot to chew on here, whether one traces sonic elements and compositional choices back to Mallarme’s poem or not. (HS)
via Vital Weekly
Pedro Rebelo’s “Listen to me†reviewed by The Sound Projector
We last heard Portuguese composer Pedro Rebelo in 2011, when he played stiff classical piano on Faint for the School of Music and Sonic Arts of Queen’s University in Belfast. He’s here today with Listen To Me(CRONICA 161-2020), a process based electro-acoustic thing which seems to continue the academic lineage to some degree.
The starting point is scientific research conducted at the Iberian Nanotechnology Lab in Braga, where they’re working on projects associated with food safety. Rebelo isn’t doing the research himself, and I sense he could care less about whether that tin of Red Beans conforms to international food standards, but he does like the machines he found in the labs. Yes, everything from air fans to compound mixers, and the hissing sound made by liquid nitrogen when you pour it out, all of these sounds were fair game for his microphones of curiosity. He found it such a rich environment that he couldn’t help but imagine the machines were coming to life and whispering “Listen To Me†in his ear, hence the title of the work. He created a sound art piece, did it as an audio installation in GNRation, and then remade it into the two sides of this cassette.
Pedro Rebelo is probably not the first electro-acoustic composer to make use of the rhythms and grinding drones of machines, but he turns in a decent canvas on this occasion, with plenty of dynamics and textures and very little in the way of unwanted post-processing and “treatmentsâ€. In this manner, he allows the devices to speak for themselves. I’m not learning anything much about nanotechnology, or about food safety, or the work of those scientists in the INL, but that’s probably not the point. All the same, I do prefer it when a musician can engage with the subject matter a bit more, exhibit a bit of conceptual rigour. Ed Pinsent
New release: @c’s “GML Vars. Liveâ€
As a preamble to @c’s upcoming album, GML Vars. Live documents Pedro Tudela and Miguel Carvalhais performing its source materials and compositions. GML Variations will be available next March as a limited-release CD and is now available for preorder.
GML Vars. Live is now available for stream or download!
Øyvind Brandtsegg’s “Nancarrow Biotope†reviewed by Soundexpeditionen
Und nun etwas komplett anderes.
Diese Musik hab ich seit Dezember hier liegen. Mehrmals angehört und ich wusste sie nie so richtig zu fassen.
Die Musik von Conlon Nancarrow ist mir bekannt, aber auf einer Orgel?!?
Ich muß zugeben, dass ich mit dem ersten Hören dieser Veröffentlichung so meine Schwierigkeiten hatte.
Ich mag Orgelmusik, schon als Jugendlicher bin ich gern in Orgelkonzerte gegangen.
Vor allem, wenn modernere Musik wie Messiaen gespielt worden ist.
Allerdings ist diese Musik für Pfeifenorgel, Disklavier und Elektronik schon sehr speziell.
Aber da hier auf diesem Blog doch mehr ungewöhnliche Musik und auch neue Musik vorgestellt wird, ist das genau das richtige. Wer also das Neue und Unbekannte liebt, der sollte diese Herausforderung annehmen.
„Vector & Intervals“ wäre ein guter Einstieg, aber das kann auch ganz falsch sein.
Øyvind Brandtsegg’s “Nancarrow Biotope†reviewed by Salt Peanuts
American iconoclast composer Conlon Nancarrow’s «Studies for Player Piano» is a series of 49 études for a mechanical piano, exceeding human performer limitations, composed between 1948 and 1992 and often relying on mathematical formulas and overtone series. These «Studies» emphasize in a playful and acrobatic manner, often with provocative and complex sounds, that the use of a mechanical piano does not necessarily lead to the automation of the music. Nancarrow (1912-1997), who was also a jazz trumpeter and his work inspired John Cage and Frank Zappa, said that his «essential concern, whether you can analyze it or not, is emotional; there’s an impact that I try to achieve by these means».
The Norwegian composer-performer Øyvind Brandtsegg, who works in the fields of computer improvisation and sound installations, orchestrated Nancarrow’s «Studies for Player Piano» for pipe organ, Disklavier and electronics. Brandtsegg transferred the punched paper rolls that Nancarrow has coded with his own hands for the experimental «Studies» into midi-files using algorithmic improvisation software he had written. Since Nancarrow’s «Studies» require an extraordinary degree of articulation due to the complex rhythmic passages and high tempi, Brandtsegg often had to adjust every single note due to the slight differences in timing between the organ pipes he used in the two concerts that document «Nancarrow Biotope». These concerts were recorded in the highly resonant spaces of the Stavanger Concert Hall and the Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim in October 2019 and April 2020.
«Nancarrow Biotope» offers Brandtsegg’s arrangements of 12 of Nancarrow‘s «Studies» plus two corresponding compositions by Brandtsegg and three more by Brandtsegg and pipe organ player Petra Bjørkhaug. The tasking process of transforming and arranging Nancarrow‘s «Studies» charges these exquisite compositions with weird, but hypnotic and celestial qualities, sometimes even with irreverent spiritual veins or letting these «Studies» come close to jazz territories. Furthermore, the interpretation of these «Studies» by the reverberating, mechanical-controlled pipe organs opens these refined «Studies» to urgent and powerful, rhythmic improvisation strategies. Nancarrow’s timeless and prophetic «Studies» shed, again, an insightful perspective on the way we use or struggle with automation and mechanization within our modern society’s expressive aesthetics.
«Nancarrow Biotope» is released on cassette (plus download option) by the Portuguese label Crónica. Eyal Hareuveni
via Salt Peanuts
Francisco López’s “DSB†reviewed by Rumore
Rutger Zuydervelt & Bruno Duplant’s “L’incertitude†reviewed by The Sound Projector
On L’Incertitude (CRÓNICA 157-2020), we have the pairing of two very productive Europeans Bruno Duplant and Rutger Zuydervelt, collaborating together for the very first time and producing two long sides of music / sound on a cassette, whose titles might be tinged with existential doubt. French composer Duplant often comes our way via the Rhizome.s label, a home for ultra-minimal and very challenging compositions, and we recently heard him team up with Pierre Gerard on the Soleil Clandestinrecord. Based on past performances, I tend to imagine Duplant is quite remorseless and ruthless in executing his cryptic, inscrutable plans, which may be why I found L’Incertitude surprisingly approachable and accessible. I shan’t say that it’s a tape packed with calliope tunes and exciting beats, but neither is it an example of his characteristic severe blanked-out style. To put it another way, there’s plenty of content and the content keeps changing. There’s also a user-friendly dimension to the work, which might be attributable to the Dutch drone-maestro Zuydervelt; whether recording as himself or as Machinefabriek, this very talented and able fellow always manages to arrange his layers and his collaged elements in patterns that make sense to the listener, even when dealing with quite abstract subject matter.
Even so, L’Incertitude does manage to insinuate that aura of metaphysical doubt, that grain of sand in the machinery, to bring us closer to that existential frame of mind so prized by every self-respecting French intellectual since old “laughing boy†J-P Sartre ruled his quarter of Paris with an iron rod of the mind. Sonically and musically, I think we get to that point through the wilful combination of unexplained and unusual elements (including a goodly dose of field recordings and found tapes) in among the musical drone which meanders like a babbling brook – unless it’s the water recordings that have planted that suggestion in my mind. In fine, our two composers see life as strange journey whose purpose is unclear, but it’s not a pointless one; and they make their observations in a spirit of genuine enquiry, without ever alienating us with cold tones or threatening minor-key drones. The label notes want to stress that D & Z arrived here through an extremely natural and organic process, based on intuition and mutual trust, without any intellectualising, pre-planned charts or discussions, and we’re all richer as a result. Ed Pinsent
Francisco López’s “DSB†reviewed by Vital Weekly
The title doesn’t tell us much more than Francisco Lopez’  myriad “Untitled†works do; I’ve no idea what DSB is an acronym for, if it’s even an acronym at all. So I’m really unsure what this album is all about… which I imagine is fine with Lopez. While many of his previous albums have little by way of cover art, this one has an image… is it a blue sky? Or a painting? Or… who knows? Looking for context seems to be beside the point, so I’ll accept “DSB†as pure sound and not attempt to discern more from it than an experience of listening. The first side is a college of domestic machine clanking, airplanes (sourced from… a war movie?), engine roar, the hum of empty hallways, burbling water and gusts of air… each one treated as an isolated episode with sudden jarring edits from one sonic space to the next. “DSB†is not obviously organized with a dramatic though-line, as many other Lopez works are. A noisier section about 3/4 of the way into the first side that pairs breaking glass and irregular thump with what might have been hurricane-force winds could have been the focus of an entire piece. Unfortunately, it cuta off abruptly, shifting focus to an entirely different density… and then again… and again… and I started to wonder if the editing was random. Side two picks up where side one left off, with small someone-shifting-their-weight-in-a-chair movements accompanying a distant cyclic whine. After seven minutes of this, Lopez changes the channel again and we’re listening to a worn copy of “Changez les Blockeurs†on a record player at the bottom of a lake… and incongruous heavy breathing (hey, I like that TNB record also, but… keep it to yourself, okay?)… before more jarring edits that seem unrelated to one another… and we end on a battlefield with a sudden stop. Most Lopez albums are challenging. I expect to not have an easy listen, to have all the pieces spelled out and handed to me. “DSB†is no exception. But when this ride ended, I was left wondering what I just heard. The second time through didn’t make anything more clear. Was there cohesion to the source material that will reveal itself to me after further listens? Or is the episodic nature of the composition significant to a theme of war or machines or… is it purely sound and I should accept it as exactly what I heard and nothing more? Lopez certainly isn’t saying. But where other Lopez albums make a visceral impact without so much as a title or cover art, I feel that “DSB†would benefit from some context. (HS)
via Vital Weekly