{"id":8304,"date":"2016-05-03T10:35:25","date_gmt":"2016-05-03T09:35:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.cronicaelectronica.org\/?p=8304"},"modified":"2017-01-02T10:36:26","modified_gmt":"2017-01-02T09:36:26","slug":"gamelan-descending-a-staircase-reviewed-by-the-sound-projector","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.cronicaelectronica.org\/?p=8304","title":{"rendered":"\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Gamelan Descending a Staircase\u00e2\u20ac\u009d reviewed by The Sound Projector"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Gamelan<\/a>
\nLast noted the Lithuanian composer Arturas Bum\u00c5\u00a1teinas in 2014 with his Epiloghi, an ingenious construct which made connections between theatrical sound-effect making machines and the work of the Italian Futurists. His new release likewise confirms that he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s visually literate and informed about the history of art; it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s called Gamelan Descending A Staircase (CR\u00c3\u201cNICA 100-2015). He is intending an explicit link between this 50-minute composition and the 1912 painting by Marcel Duchamp, although it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a not a wholly conceptual link; it came to him in a dream, a vision\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6he had the fanciful idea of a Gamelan orchestra falling downstairs. In some ways I wish Bum\u00c5\u00a1teinas had pursued this original fancy and staged such an event, even at the expense of injuring himself and some fellow musicians and causing permanent damage to the instruments\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6it reminds me of John Cale\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s irresponsible idea for pushing a piano down a mineshaft. Some ideas are probably better not executed.<\/p>\n

I seem to recall that Duchamp\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s original painting did contain the idea of expressing movement within a static plane\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6trying to respond to this visual challenge, a new challenge posed perhaps by motion pictures\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6but he also ended up fracturing his representation of the human body in some way, as he attempted to see all the way around the figure as it curled around the stairs. He even added what a cartoonist would call \u00e2\u20ac\u0153speed lines\u00e2\u20ac\u009d or \u00e2\u20ac\u0153motion lines\u00e2\u20ac\u009d to indicate the movement of the body. What you see in the painting is an attempt at three-dimensional seeing, flattening out several visual events onto a single image. Picasso and Braque had tried to see all the way around static objects in their Cubist paintings, but Duchamp was out to capture movement. From this fine art lesson, Bum\u00c5\u00a1teinas draws two conclusions; the fractured representation of Duchamp\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s nude becomes \u00e2\u20ac\u0153deconstructed micro-forms and the study of sound structures\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in his music here, and the idea of forward movement becomes \u00e2\u20ac\u0153progressing in slow motion, without a clear point of destination\u00e2\u20ac\u009d.<\/p>\n

With these concepts in mind, one should probably hear Gamelan Descending A Staircase as an experimental piece of sound art, rather than the document of a performance. The original recordings have been composed and assembled by Bum\u00c5\u00a1teinas; he wants us to hear tiny, splintered fragments of percussive sound, multiplied into Cubist-like forms by his editing and overdubbing process. Yes, actual Indonesian orchestral instruments were the starting point \u00e2\u20ac\u201c he recorded them at the Ethnological Museum Dahlem in Berlin in 2013 (apparently with the help of one Raminta Atnimar, whose palindromic name is a little too good to be true) \u00e2\u20ac\u201c but the finished work has very little to do with the history or ethnicity of these instruments, I suspect. The lustre or resonance of the metallic instruments has been sacrificed; what remains is a mosaic of percussive information passing by at some speed. At any rate, he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s probably less interested in Gamelan as Gamelan than Philip Corner, Debussy, or even Harry Partch. There was a live premi\u00c3\u00a8re for the work at the Jauna Muzika festival in April 2015, where he added three improvising trumpet players to a playback of the pre-recorded Gamelan tape. I have no idea if that intervention added anything of value to the music, but I like to report these details.<\/p>\n

The idea for this project is certainly intriguing, but the record isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t an especially compelling listen somehow; at 50 minutes it feels like stretching a simple idea a little too far. However, I do like the strangely jumbled feel to the surface; the instruments stand on the verge on creating an incoherent, overdubbed mess, and as a whole work it does indeed succeed in conveying the sensation of chaotic forward movement towards no apparent goal. Maybe this is the composer\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s gentle statement about the futility of contemporary life; for all our busy-ness, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re getting precisely nowhere. From 26 November 2015. If you buy the digital download, you get an extra track \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcSad Young Man On A Train\u00e2\u20ac\u2122. Ed Pinsent<\/em><\/p>\n

via The Sound Projector<\/a><\/p>\n