Asymmetry Music Magazine » P-R

Dave Phillips, IIIII

michaelkarman — Sat, 21 Apr 2007 21:15:05 +0000

IIIII starts off with a silent track of four seconds, continues with a seven and a half minute track of an unprocessed thunder shower, and goes into another track of four silent seconds. This review is not going to be a track by track account of IIIII. There are 99 tracks, after all, some only a few seconds long, some silent. 99 tracks might make you think that the music is restless and jerky. Well, sometimes it is, but the music doesn’t always start and stop at track breaks. That is, not all lines or gestures or motifs or whatever start and stop at track breaks. Some do.

The music is terrifically loud, sometimes. The music is almost so soft as to be inaudible, sometimes. The music is wonderfully harsh and delicate and beautifully recorded, always. One thing is true about the 99 tracks: IIIII is as various as that many tracks would lead you to believe.

The clip is tracks 10-14 and the first several seconds of track 15. Enjoy!

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Les Kristoff K. Roll, Des travailleurs de la nuit, à l’amie des objets (MKCD024)

michaelkarman — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 22:03:41 +0000

This piece could almost be taken as a test case of how inherently musical speaking voices are. I’m fairly certain that that’s not the main thing they set out to do in this piece, but it’s just as certain to me that that’s one of things that’s happened. Des travailleurs opens with the extreme far end of speaking, at the line between speaking and singing, a crowd of people chanting. (“No pasaran.”) In between that and its reprise at the end of the piece are just about every kind of spoken voice—single voices, conversation, old people, children, men, women, laughing, yelling—and all set out as one would contrast voices in an orchestral piece, with tuttis and solos and small groups of instruments, with melodic and rhythmic variation, of course.

And no, listening to this piece, you will not ever be reminded of orchestral music, even with this review in your head. But I think you’ll perhaps savor voices, ordinary speaking voices, just a bit more than you did before listening to this.

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Dominique Petitgand,10 petites compositions familiales (MKCD021)

michaelkarman — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 22:01:43 +0000

1 – Le prévu—low drone that comes and goes; held accordion chord; balalaika* strumming. Over them, a woman speaking.
2 – En partance—younger woman. Long pauses. Accordion thrumming and some high pitched (falsetto) singing (also female). Older woman talking, then even higher high pitched, as high as only kids should be able to do. Accordion thrumming and an actual tune. Fade out.
3 – Par terre—One woman then another talking over a drone. One loud electric guitar-like strum, otherwise, some vaguely restaurantish** or factory-like sounds and an engine slowly ticking over.
4 – Comme tout le monde—seventeen seconds, though one second is silent at the beginning and five at the end. Eleven seconds, then, of electroacoustic Webern. These eleven seconds are worth the whole disc as far as I’m concerned. An exquisite jewel.
5 – On le retrouvera—strumming guitar and finger cymbals. Some very soft whistling, too, behind the voices of two women.
6 – Le visiophone oderant—Woman and child over what sounds like an old pre-electric sewing machine. Lovely mechanical, whirring sound at least. (Yes, it could easily be a wind-up toy.) And the kid is full of personality. Much fun.
7 – La tête le première—Merry Christmas, I can say no more. (I don’t want to spoil the surprise.)
8 – Quelqu’un est tombé—A hard, abrasive strum (very yum). And a nice tune in the accordion. And people saying “quelqu’un est tombé.” (I sent this to the webmaster to see if he could identify that tune. He could not, but he said this piece made his whole day.)
9 – La brosse à cheveux—And the girl talking. And a radio in the background.
10 – L’imprévu—*no, it’s not necessarily a balalaika. Just something about the way it’s played, I guess.

But should you buy it? In a word, “yes.”

**restaurantish?

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Eliane Radigue, Biogenesis (MKCD019)

michaelkarman — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 22:00:41 +0000

In Eliane Radigue’s music, nothing happens over a long time. As Biogenesis is one of her relatively short pieces, weighing in at just over twenty-one minutes, the nothing happens fairly quickly, especially that throbbing bass at about the halfway point. But not to worry. If you enjoy the spacious quality of Radigue’s other work, you will not miss it here. Biogenesis is a rich, dark, slow-moving piece. If you’re ever tempted to put Radigue on for some nice ambient noise, you should resist. “Nothing” is full of incident and detail. You should know that by now!

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Walter Ruttmann, Weekend (MKCD010)

michaelkarman — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 21:51:49 +0000

In 1912, Stravinsky wrote Le Sacre, in 1916, Charles Ives wrote his fourth symphony, in 1924, George Antheil wrote Ballet Mechanique, in 1948, Pierre Schaeffer wrote Étude aux chemins de fer, in 1958, Edgard Varèse wrote Poème électronique…

And in nineteen thirty, Walter Ruttmann wrote Weekend. Although the term musique concrète was coined to describe Schaeffer’s Étude and the tape works by him and the dozens (and then hundreds) of others who would follow, it is no stretch really to take Weekend as the first concrète piece. Except perhaps for the quality of the recording, it certainly sounds as if it could have been written any time between 1948 and 1958.

If you want your collection of “firsts” to be complete, you’ll have to get this. Either in this recording, if you want your collection of Cinema pour l’oreille to be complete, or in the recently released Intermedium CD which also includes remixes by DJ Spooky, To rococo Rot, Mick Harris, John Oswald, Klaus Buhlert, and Ernst Horn. (See Forced Exposure for a description of this cd.) Or, if you’re slightly nuts, like me, you’ll have to have both.

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Phroq, Collapse

michaelkarman — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 21:31:39 +0000

1. attempt #4
2. collapse
3. attempt #2
4. music for french writings
5. attempt #1
6. psychotest, last attempt
7. attempt #3
8. the litigation
9. pulse and impulse

The sudden change from soft sounds to loud noise is shocking, as is the sudden change from loud noise to soft sounds. You get some of each (some, not a lot) in Collapse, which may be more a description of what happens to the listener rather than of the album.

In any event, each change encourages us to attend to detail, especially when going from loud to soft. Each little sound, each little nuance of layering, of harmony (simultaneous sounds), becomes, it seems, clearer, more sharply etched, when it follows a bit of loud, abrasive noise. “Collapse,” “Music for French Writing,” and “Litigation” are particularly tasty in this regard. (The clip is from Litigation.)

Noise fans may think there’s not enough of it, but I assure you that what there is is scrumptious and satisfying (and loud). Having said that, I must say that I was most taken with the long, softer bits, and with the changes from one state to another.

A most listenable disc, indeed.

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Christian Renou, Fragments and Articulations

michaelkarman — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 21:28:46 +0000

Fragments and articulations no. 1 opens with some very soft, distant sounds that make almost a complicated little tune of sorts. Almost. Then in the foreground, some staticky noises appear, making the same complicated little pattern. After the background has become louder, and come to the front, everything falls away and some much electrified cymbal noodling takes over. A low tone underneath gets louder and louder until the noodling (same complicated little pattern?) and the tone are to the front. Yes, just like that introductory bit.

All that was not to start a blow by blow account of this piece, but, beyond whetting your appetite, to suggest that the words fragments and articulations might not prepare you for such carefully developed ideas. The overall effect of a casual hearing is of a fairly random collection of different noises, some sustained tones, some bright, hard articulated attacks, some clattering, spinning, staticky noises, presented as a series of crescendi and decrescenti. But as soon as you listen carefully, at any point in any of these three, you’ll be impressed at the intricate detail and at how each piece is distinct, not because the sounds are different necessarily, but because the materials are all so cunningly worked out. In brief, pieces that reward the most intent scrutiny.

By the way, near the beginning of number 3, you’ll be frightened into cutting the volume before the neighbors arrive if not the police. Don’t give in to your fears.

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