blog.Crónica

Piotr Kurek wrote the music and composed the structure of his work ‚Lectures‘ like a surrealistic novel. And most of the time a novel has a hero. In this case that hero is the late Cornelius Cardew. Being a scholar and gifted contributor to the world famous Karl-Heinz Stockhausen, with whom he collaborated for a good three years, Cardew also laid hands on the piece Carre as a composer under the supervision of the master himself.

Not merely satisfied with that he engaged in several musical adventures, frequently changing his compositional structures and developing into one of the most experienced free style adventurers, influencing a legion of experimental musicians in the process. One of his works, The Great Learning, must have been at least one of the major reasons why Piotr Kurek created this album. With the aid of Cardew’s son Walter, who contributed some tapes of his father’s lectures, this musical experimental novel came to life.

While Cardew’s voice, for most of the time, sounds as thought it were being emitted by a partially defunct radio, it is intermixed with what seem to be live-instruments, which drift along in a free style that indeed doesn’t know any limits. Although sometimes harmonic sound parts appear, they are blown away like whirling autumn winds blow apart a bunch of fallen leaves. Driven into corners of wild ineptitude, they are pulled together as if drawn by a mighty magnet again and again, while in the background, the master lectures…

The complete absence of any notion of rhythm, despite the presence of percussive instruments, is another major feature of this album. Rudimentary elements of structure are exclusively provided by the instruments involved. Some electronically produced material can be detected but they seamlessly join force with those instruments. Wavelike sounds wash ashore of the endless musical groundswell that keeps coming and going… maybe one of the basic lessons we are about to learn.

On track 5, ‘Cardboard Cups’, we hear Cardew talk about the differences between jazz performances by the same artist on an album and in a live performance leading some listeners to be disappointed by the very different effects. This is also in some ways a turning point in Kurek’s music. While still experimental, we now hear free jazz elements join in with their typical improvisational elements. Flowing into each other the two genres create a new and surely exiting one, spiced with evenly jazzy and experimentally mixed comments of the celebrated master Cardew.

Overall, this album is something like a musical monument errected in honour of one of the great pioneers of modern music. And I dare say that it could hardly have been built any better than what Piotr Kurek has done here – his music is a genuine testimony of what the masters lectures were all about.

By Fred M. Wheeler

via Tokafi

Ten pieces originally composed by this Warsaw-based artist for a festival in the very same city in 2007, created in honour of Cornelius Cardew. Using previously unreleased sounds culled from performances, lectures and rehearsals by Cardew (and passed onto Piotr by his son, Walter), Kurek has subsequently developed them during the time since to simultaneously pay respect to them and tease them into a context more his own. The resulting compositions are surprisingly accessible on the whole, often working themselves around repetitive melodic fragments, sizeable chunks of dialogue, tiny gusts of sax spurting, swaying tonal wisps, and hints of mannered jazz that wholly betray the clanging that greets us at the disc’s entrance. Rather airy and full of movement, Lectures is a perfectly hewn listen that I’m sure would have been worth hearing in its original form, live, too. Kurek has done a good and respectful job here and, if Cornelius Cardew were still alive, I’d like to believe he’d feel much the same way. (Richard Johnson)

via Fourth Dimension

Der polnische Musiker Piotr Kurek ist Teil des Breakcore-Duos Slepcy. Die vorliegende Aufnahme, fast ausschließlich akustisch, ohne jeden Beat, überrascht angesichts dieses Backgrounds als Klangcollage aus Geige, Saxophon, Akkordeon und Anderen. Ein Haufen Instrumente, der gleichberechtigt vor sich hin klimpert. Das erinnert an ruhige Jazz-Improvisationen, lange, strukturlose Stücke alter Art-Rockhasen und frühe Throbbing-Gristle-Platten. Die Klänge kreisen um Zitate des Avantgarde-Komponisten Cornelius Cardew. Man hört ihn über Improvisation, Regelbruch und die Bedeutung des Fehlers in der Musik sprechen. Zu Beginn der CD fühlt man sich als Beobachter einer Straßenlaternen-beleuchteten Ecke einer Großstadt. Allerlei zieht vorbei, jedoch nichts Aufsehenerregendes. Vielleicht komm eine Gruppe betrunkener Jugendlicher, doch sie verschwindet wieder. “Lectures” ist zwielichtig, aber nicht unfreundlich. Die Musik fließt dahin, ohne größere Brüche oder Statements. Die Melodien breiten sich nicht aus, werden nicht groß. Sie sind beschnitten und entfremdet, wie CD-Hänger. Teils atonal und monoton, ohne jedoch aggressiv oder unschön zu werden. Solche Kompositions-Fetzen wiederholen sich und bewegen sich zueinander und übereinander. Hin und wieder hört man Ansätze von Solos, die jedoch nie die Aufmerksamkeit an sich reißen. Der Klang verdichtet sich mitunter in Richtung einer Wall of Sound, aber hält beim Mäuerchen inne. Die Instrumente lassen Platz. Der Sprecher Cardew wird von Hintergrundgeräuschen aus einem Proberaum begleitet und klingt wie durch ein weit entferntes Radio, während die Instrumente klar und nahe sind, ohne den Raum ganz auszufüllen. Zwei zueinander positionierte Ebenen klingen getrennt durch den Lautsprecher. Bei “Go Up” tritt eine verzerrte Gitarre aus, die von Trent Teznor eingespielt sein könnte. Ausnahmsweise kristallisiert sich ein treibendes Soundbrett heraus. Nach einigen Minuten klingt es aus und lässt die zerfaserte, holzige Struktur stehen, die die übrigen Stücke kennzeichnet.