{"id":7635,"date":"2015-04-13T14:51:04","date_gmt":"2015-04-13T13:51:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.cronicaelectronica.org\/?p=7635"},"modified":"2017-01-02T13:20:07","modified_gmt":"2017-01-02T12:20:07","slug":"unfurling-streams-reviewed-by-54","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.cronicaelectronica.org\/?p=7635","title":{"rendered":"\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Unfurling Streams\u00e2\u20ac\u009d reviewed by 5:4"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"cronica094-2015_520\"<\/a>
\nFrom one black box to another: large, black and\u00e2\u20ac\u201dunless you tilt it to the light\u00e2\u20ac\u201danonymous, within which is contained Unfurling Streams, a new sound\/image work created by Monty Adkins and Stephen Harvey. The two collaborated on last year\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Rift Patterns, and this new work displays the same close attention to the intricate, intimate marriage of sight and sound. i\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve written about Adkins\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 music on a number of occasions, but i\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve never really addressed what i think is one of the most interesting aspects about it. Since 2008, in certain movements of the thrilling [60]Project, and certainly from his album Five Panels released the following year, Adkins\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 music has gone through a fascinating process of maturation, becoming slow, spacious and exceptionally beautiful. And this is very dangerous from an aesthetic perspective, as it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an approach that invites comparisons to be drawn with contemporary ambient music, a quite different field and one that\u00e2\u20ac\u201dwith a few notable exceptions\u00e2\u20ac\u201dhas in recent years become ever more entrenched in displays of banal \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcnongenuity\u00e2\u20ac\u2122. In any case, to describe Monty Adkins\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 music as \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcambient\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 would be to fixate solely on its surface and ignore the legacy, context, intentions and depths of action and content that lie beneath its undeniably attractive veneer. Adkins is doing a whole lot more. In Unfurling Streams, the point of inspiration (for both images and music) is the final two lines of poem no. 10 from E. E. Cummings\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 1958 collection 95 Poems: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153For whatever we lose(like a you or a me) \/ it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s always ourselves we find in the sea\u00e2\u20ac\u009d. Far from being the cue for sounds either directly recorded from or alluding to the machinations of waves, tides and the like, Adkins instead opts for a more abstract engagement, creating a sextet of canvasses that are characterised by a sense of fluidity, or buoyancy. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no idle float or drift here, materials are purposefully moved so as to produce particular moments of coalescence, or to underpin a moment of structural importance, or to reinforce something hitherto only implied. Harmony is a prominent concern throughout Unfurling Streams; penetrating deep bass notes tonally recolour everything above them, and there are even instances that one might call \u00e2\u20ac\u02dccadential\u00e2\u20ac\u2122. The considerable amounts of drama that ensue (Adkins\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 sense of timing is just immaculate) easily finds its equal in the remarkable collection of 12 images created by Stephen Harvey (who, it should be stressed, is also a composer). Although more aquatically referential, they, too, are sufficiently abstracted that in most cases they go way beyond mere representation; Harvey\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s concern is \u00e2\u20ac\u0153to investigate detail and particularity and make it the essence of the work\u00e2\u20ac\u009d. The images are a triumph in which familiarity is made new, even (at first) alien: complex refractive latticework, swirling clouds of impossible perspective, pools of something molten encrusted with jewels, these are all among the delights to be found in Harvey\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s gorgeous, immersive images (glimpses of some of which can be seen here and here). Released in an extremely limited edition of 24 (as well as a standard CD-only edition of 200), at time of writing just five of these box sets remain available, so in order to engage fully with Unfurling Streams, you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll need to make haste to the Cr\u00c3\u00b3nica Bandcamp site, where the album can also be streamed. Simon Cummings<\/em><\/p>\n

via 5:4<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From one black box to another: large, black and\u00e2\u20ac\u201dunless you tilt it to the light\u00e2\u20ac\u201danonymous, within which is contained Unfurling Streams, a new sound\/image work created by Monty Adkins and Stephen Harvey. The two collaborated on last year\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Rift Patterns, and this new work displays the same close attention to the intricate, intimate marriage of … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Unfurling Streams\u00e2\u20ac\u009d reviewed by 5:4”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[359,279,310],"class_list":["post-7635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-359","tag-monty-adkins","tag-stephen-harvey","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.cronicaelectronica.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.cronicaelectronica.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.cronicaelectronica.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.cronicaelectronica.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.cronicaelectronica.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7635"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.cronicaelectronica.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7635\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7636,"href":"http:\/\/blog.cronicaelectronica.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7635\/revisions\/7636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.cronicaelectronica.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.cronicaelectronica.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.cronicaelectronica.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}