Marc Behrens was more active with releases a long time ago, the first decade of this century and the last half of the decade before that, but these days may have shifted his work into sound installations – who knows? Maybe he releases his music online mostly. There is a ‘preamble’ release for ‘Clould’, called ‘Aiear’, also for Cronica Electronica and both deal with “airborne mass transport that propels large groups of human beings – passive by force – through a space that once belonged to mythological beings and energies”. Behrens made recordings inside aeroplanes, from the in-flight announcements, check-in luggage, electromagnetic sensors and whatever else you can catch soundwise on the 24-hour-a-day entertainment centres that are airports and aeroplanes.
To be honest, I (BW) have checked my collection, and all I can find from Marc is two tracks on samplers, and that’s it. So, everything I’m hearing is a first for me. And even though I’m always looking for concepts behind releases – and lots of people thankfully send them when they send us their stuff – this is an example of an idea where I can only place the concept on sound creation of composing techniques. I can’t really place this album in the perspective of what the album is about. According to the notes, “as the Clould cycle is based on an English language understanding, a libretto-style transcription of the final 5th Movement reveals English words and onomatopoetic exclamations. This dedicated system very loosely refers to the concept of b?jamantra (or b?j?ks . ara: seed syllable) used in Tantric Hinduism and Buddhist Mysticism, in which certain syllables, like “om .” for example, contain sonic essences that make manifestations of a certain element, entity, or deity.”
But then there is the actual product: a CD with 74 minutes of pure sonic poetry. Five movements – two about six minutes, two about 12 minutes and a long 37-minute final movement – create a lovely atmosphere of faded voices, building drones, and slight noisescapes… But most of all, this CD hits surrealistically. And in that perspective I give you men’s dream of flying. Stories of Icarus, who flew towards the sun when the wax melted through the heat, and he lost his wings. As well as the flying machines of the Middle Ages, men probably dreamt about flying ever since a cave dweller saw an ancient bird and thought about catching and eating it. And it only took so many thousands of years and now we can whenever we want, depending on whether we have the money to pay for it. If you would have told that to a cave dweller … That’s the surrealism I’m talking about. (BW/FdW)
via Vital Weekly