Asymmetry Music Magazine » U-Z

Intuition and Order in Xenakis’s Orient-Occident

michaelkarman — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 08:35:46 +0000

by Brandon Conway

In the late 1950’s and early 60’s, Xenakis worked with GRM (Groupe de recherches musicales) in Paris to produce several pieces for electromagnetic tape, including Orient-Occident, a piece often overshadowed by works like Concrete PH and Bohor, which are rightly considered more groundbreaking pieces in Xenakis’s early oeuvre, particularly Bohor, with its unique source material, its rather violent dynamics, and its rich sound palette. However, Orient-Occident is a firm testament to Xenakis’s visceral immediacy and also a clear example of his early experiments with creating a connection between micro- and macrocomposition. For Xenakis it was important that there be an inextricable link between materials, method, and form. What is most interesting about Orient-Occident is that, unlike many other works by Xenakis, this connection seems to have been forged primarily through intuition as opposed to rigorous systems of control.(...)
Read the rest of Intuition and Order in Xenakis’s Orient-Occident (1,771 words)

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R.H.Y. Yau, The Hidden Tongue

michaelkarman — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 01:18:28 +0000

Randy Yau is the graphics designer responsible for the distinctive design that makes shopping for Ground Fault cds so easy and that makes owning them a visual treat as well as a sonic one. As R.H.Y. Yau, Randy is also a fiercely talented musician whose The Hidden Tongue is a sonic treat for sure. Sharp, bright, harsh eruptions of noise over what is mostly either fairly soft sounds (throbbing low frequencies) or small sounds much amplified over no sound at all. But that’s just the sounds, each of the eight “incidents” that make up The Hidden Tongue, from A to H, moves through time with the magnificent inevitability and energy of a tidal wave. Your ears will thank you for buying this excruciatingly glorious music.

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Ralf Wehowsky, Nameless victims (MKCD020)

michaelkarman — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 22:01:15 +0000

The first section, of three, opens with low jet engine-like rumblings, interrupted by loud, short sounds with such short decays that I still hesitate to guess whether they’re metal or glass. Which is OK, as that gives you as good a sense of their quality as anything else. I was most taken by the contrast of low drones and high, sharp mechanical clattering. (Small sounds, greatly amplified.) By the end of this section, contrabass sounds have taken over, and as one remembers the opening, perhaps by starting the CD over, one starts to suspect that most of the sounds have originated with the bass, a lovely instrument to be sure, half of whose noises sound electronic already. (Check out the acoustic, unaltered screeching in the upper register about a minute into section two.)

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Christian Zanési, Grand bruit (MKCD011)

michaelkarman — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 21:52:25 +0000

Long slow crescendo. Short decrescendo. Long slow crescendo. Long decrescendo. Lovely rich deep, dark drones. Lovely high, bright tones. Extremely distorted voices. Some pitched electronic sounds that make a tune of sorts. And many wave-like motifs (short cresc/decresc), some sounding like actual waves. No abrupt changes; each layer moves slowly and majestically through time, growing and diminishing at a leisurely pace. A piece to savor over and over again, believe me.

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Vertonen, The ocean is gone, the ship is next

michaelkarman — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 21:33:30 +0000

Mostly steady state stuff, either loops or long drones (are there short drones?) or static. But also lot of different and unrelated styles, all jumbled together, as one would expect from turntable music, after all. But it won’t remind you, or only rarely, of the other turntable stuff you may know, Marclay or Busratch or Les sculpteurs de vinyl. It moves more slowly, more leisurely than these, with easy and majestic unconcern for incompatibility or illogic.

It is also, you may be interested, exquisitely gorgeous music.

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