Wandelweiser und so weiter 2

The other three discs from the recently released Another Timbre box- as before, these don't even qualify as capsule reviews: at best, these are a flurry of initial impressions, many of which will include the words 'sparse' and / or 'lovely'.
Thut- Many, 1-4. We left our last episode, if you'll recall, with the flat Manfred Werder cliffhanger- it's a relief to hear something sensual, albeit brief, after that.###
Improvisation #08.01.12. Really engrossing improvisation, full of alluring sounds. Can't possibly give more than that on one listen, except to say I know already I will end up playing this many, many times. #####
Sfirri- for the choice of directions #1. Almost literally unremarkable. Come on, I've not hit my stride yet, let me warm up. ##
Susam- for maaike schoorel. Now this is beautiful, for what that's worth. Long, potent silences and then a sudden flurry of chamber music sounds, just for a few seconds. Some brief dialogue and some deep, vital (good Ben Watson word, that) double bass (I'm guessing). Really, really good. #####
Lash- For Five. Breathy- every sound is important here. Sustained notes on different instruments, working together, working alone. And yet hypnotic. Very taken with this. ####
Frey- Time Intent memory. A very pure tone to open, and again this is going to take far more than one listen. I can't even formulate my opinions on this yet, though I suspect I may come to like it a lot. And that's very much becoming the theme of this batch of tracks, and that's no bad thing. I don't think there's any doubt though that the concept of the 'boxed set' / 'compilation' is going to end up working against a lot of this music. I can't imagine I'm going to feel the urge to play these discs from start to finish particularly often- I'm not sold on there being a 'theme' for each of these discs, despite the titles they've been allocated, very poetic and suggestive titles like 'Drifts' and 'Eddies'. Inevitably some pieces are going to fall by the wayside, and only by keeping these brief, insubstantial notes can I really track what I'm going to want to hear again and why. ####
Sfirri- for the choice of directions #2. Some rather obviously 'pretty' pluckings which is a bit of a shock to the system. ###
Frey- Circular Music. Again there's something obvious and straightforward about the instrumentation here, and surely anyone could find this attractive. But I find this far less frustrating than the Sfirri. This piece comes from a classical background and I would argue seems the most overly classical of all the pieces so far. Actually this is gorgeous. You know, this could be played on Classic FM and I don't think anyone would blink. #####
Werder- 2008 (6). My main man! A very rainy field recording and what may or may not be a double bass. This is a more satisfying listen than the other Werder pieces. That's as far as I'll go. ###
Frey- Un champ de tendresse... Whistling wind and clattering percussion- enjoyable if perhaps a little lightweight. Sorry, probably not really supposed to use throwaway words like that. One listen, remember, one listen. I can get away with anything here. ###
Susam- for sesshu toyo. Hard to get any sort of a grasp on this from one listen. Sparse and fairly uninvolving. ###
Pisaro- Descending Series (1). Quite lovely set of very echoey piano notes. There's a very low electronic drone with the piano above it. The notes never seem to die- they fall away, they linger, and then, where they've fallen, they gather. It's ptetty. ####
Cage- Prelude for Meditation. A piece with repetition, with a hook even. How did that sneak in here? It's over in a flash, so don't worry. Another palate cleanser, and very welcome. ####
Sfirri- little by little #1. I need another word for sparse. Very breathy, atmospheric, layers of minimal sound piled one on the other. Again, waves and then a gathering of reserves. ###
Davies- Cofnod Pen Bore. An Autechre cover? Apparently not. This is really good, sensual stuff, something to get your teeth in to and something to luxuriate in. That's nice, getting all that from a brief piece like this- this could have been much longer and I would have been happy. #####
Sfirri- natural at last #3. Raw, rough, growly. Can't really see any particular connections with the first two readings of this. ###
Sfirri- little by little 2. There's not a hell of a lot going on here, but what there is is fascinating. These Sfirri pieces are hard to pin down and impossibly hard to write about. ####
White- Drinking and Hooting Machine. The joker in the pack. A mood changer certainly. Long live the Clangers.###
Sfirri- little by little 3. The brief duration doesn't do a piece like this any favours. This, more than any of the last few Sfirri realizations is hanging around in my head though. Already I want to listen to it again. Who knows- 6 and a half hours into this set and I can't even tell what I like any more. ###
Nemeth- eine unbedeutende aussage. There's something very satisfying about the pure held tone against the scratching and the forraging. Sensual almost. No, strike out that almost. Sensual. It makes the skin tingle. ####
Houben- von da nach da. Droning strings and vibrant railroad percussion- this isn't a million miles away from a GYBE! track. Then a second section where the drones dominate. Fascinating, compelling and a really good way to end the set. ####
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Have a huge amount of respect for this set, as I hope I've conveyed, and further listens can only deepen this respect. I think, generally, there are too many short pieces, and one or two further improvisations would have been welcome. The Werder pieces you can keep, but perhaps that goes without saying. I'll listen to them again, but I rather begrudge it. I don't know- perhaps that tells more about me than the music. There's a considerable amount of music on this set though that I'm going to be spending a considerable amount of time with- I think it's a fine release.

Asides, for better or worse 4

         It was no good arguing with him, for he had the appalling obstinacy of very weak things.

John Buchan

Asides, for better or worse 3

Fen, who disapproved of congregational singing, occupied himself with glaring at anyone who opened his mouth.

Edmund Crispin

Wandelweiser und so weiter 1

Because there's something childishly inappropriate about giving a bunch of Wandelweiser (and related...) recordings a cursory listen and assigning them a grade out of five, here are some grades out of five for a bunch of Wandelweiser (and related) recordings that I've given a cursory listen to.
The new 8 hour box 'Wandelweiser und so weiter' has just been released on Another Timbre, and while any sort of weighty judgement on the set is going to have to wait, I wanted to put a few initial impressions down. And these really are initial impressions- most tracks here (aside from a few I was instantly taken with and wanted to replay before moving on to anything else) have just had a solitary listen. And I've spent very little time with the booklet so I couldn't begin to tell you who is playing on most of the tracks, let alone the sources for Manfred Werder's creative soarings this time around. 
But these initial impressions are generally very positive- the biggest fear I had going in to this was the set could easily dissolve into vaitaions on a theme- hesitant notes and tones, extended silences, repetitions with only microtonal differences each time around: all the trademark, stereotypical Wandelweiser stuff (which, of course, is usually bang on the money). An absence of grit in the proceedings. Fortunately, this is not the case- there are some group improvisations thrown in to the mix which provide all the grit you'll need, and nourish the palate ready for the next round of quiet distractions.
The first three discs then, and this is essentially a reference for myself- an aide-mémoire of early impressions.
Sfirri- Natural at last #1. Very beautiful. There's definitely a foreground and a background here- sparse sensual pluckings to the fore, hissings and cracklings behind. They come and go but there is always something there to grip onto. The tingling of the skin, the functioning of the body. ####
Beuger- Lieux de Passage. Very beautiful. (This could get repetitive). But, really, very beautiful. More satisfying than anything else I've heard by him. Gripping, serene. #####
Werder- 2011(4). A fairly empty ten minut field recording which could well be more engaging elsewhere- this is where having the music in a compilation of handy bite-sized 'chunks' probably does it an injustice. This isn't uninteresting, but to be honest I wanted to hear the Beuger again. ##
Sfirri- Natural at last #2. Soft drones and breathing noises, all of a piece, all of a level. Pleasant.###
Saunders- Various distinct spatial or temporal locations. A whisper of a piece- perhaps a brief indulgence, but actually very attractive listening. ###
Malfatti- Heikou. Cells and waves. The instruments come in, announce themselves, retreat. Pause. Return. ###
 Sfirri- The Undulating Land- held tones interspersed with a plucked string and- what- a gong? I could always check I guess. It works really well though. This little taster of variety is refreshing. ####
Cage- Three2. And instantly this seems like a barrage of raucous noise after everything that has gone before! Interesting noise though and more interesting the longer it goes on, especially the frenetic conclusion. ###
'Etchings'. The to and fro-ing between the two tones I find raher annoying, especially as what is going on around these tones isn't. Is this an improvsaion? The booklet isn't far away... The to and fro-ing ends and the soundworld becomes immeasurably richer. And then I lose interest again. This is by far the piece I have liked the least so far, and I'm not sure why. ##
Durrant- Sowari. Squeakings and rumblings. Curious how the little word 'ensemble' colours your perceptions. Pretty conclusion. ###
Pisaro- fields have ears 3b. Despite the field recording and the assisted scratchings and whistlings, everything here is grounded in the piano. I love the sudden stop after eleven minutes which really makes the sounds you have been listening to resonate. Big rather cheesy bass note halfway through. Brief burst of choral music. ###
Beuger- 't aus 'etwas. Quite seductive- very sparse, repetitive vocal sounds, clicking and pushing out air. ###
Thut- Vier,1-10. Cells of orchestral sound punctuated by silences. The sounds are frequently dramatic, romantic even, and the silences quite jarring. One to hear again. ####
Brogan- Ensemble. This sounds like a sparse and nondescript field recording, a windy one at that, with selected instrumentation introduced during the process- reeds, electronics. This is grittier and all the better for it. #####
Saunders- With the same material.With Saunders you are forever in fundamentally the same territory- his pieces are more easily identifiable I think than anyone else in this set- but it is interesting territory, and I'm sure this will repay further listening. ####
Werder- 2 ausfuhrende. Not even sure what the instrumentation is, but this is some kind of mating call repeated periodically over half an hour. The sound itself is by no means interesting enough to stand up to that kind of scrutiny. Is this the music for our modern, interest-filled lives, I ask you... Honsetly, on a first listen, I hated this. #
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And that's halfway through the box. More indepth analysis of a similar stature to come.

Asides, for better or worse 2

          But Nikki was already a yard away, black in blackness.

‘Wait! Give me your hand, Nikki.’

‘Mister Queen. That’s not my hand.’

Ellery Queen

Asides, for better or worse 1

After the detailed life of the household had been thoroughly exhibited, the judge requested the Premier again to step forward which he did with a quiet dignity. The judge then said, in a sudden grating voice: ‘Get a new soul. That thing’s not fit for a dog. Get a new soul.’

GK Chesterton

Catherine Lamb- three bodies (moving)

After an initial listen to 'three bodies', Cat Lamb's piece for cello, violin and bass clarinet on Simon Reynell's Another Timbre (surely the finest record label in the country right now, certainly the home of more pleasing listening for these ears this year than any other label), I resolved never to listen to it again. I don't throw discs away, but this one was going to be hidden in a wardrobe somewhere- my antipathy towards it was that strong. Something about those slow, teetering, dizzying violin and cello lines was creating in me something very close to nausea- I was being physically affected by this music. And not in a way that I was happy paying money for.

But such is the way of things- I had paid money for this disc, I would endure a second listen. And everything changed. Not that it means much when you've heard as little new music as I've been able to this year, but 'three bodies' has gone from being a gift I would send to those I'd wish interesting illnesses upon, to my favourite recording of the year. I want to say it has an alien kind of beauty- the composer calls it, if I remember right, a bland beauty. So there you go- alien and bland. It's wonderful. Nausea? Lily-livered fool. It just sounds right now, though I'm still gong to opt out of inflicting it on the kids.

 

 

The Envy Of The World: Fifty Years Of The BBC Third Programme and Radio 3 (Humphrey Carpenter)

Not even in my most rabid classical music devouring years was Radio 3 a significant fixture in my life, but I like the idea of it being there... just in case. And if someone were to write a potted history of the Third Programme, well, who better than the guy who wrote the Mr Majeika books. (Yeah I know he used to work there, that's not the point.)
What a ludicrous century the 20th was. We will look back on it, if we don't already, in utter disbelief. And this is topical actually with the Jimmy Savile outrages becoming more horrific by the day- inevitably you ask yourself: how did this happen? How could this have been allowed to happen? How could our safe European lives have been so very different back then? And there are clues in here, in Carpenter's book.
And let's say straight off the bat that this is a joy of a book, capturing a tine of arrogance, snobbery and entitlement that we will never see again. And yes of course that's a bad thing, surely that goes without saying, and yet... And yet. You can see the allure of this world. The heyday of the Third Programme, as detailed in Carpenter's book, has the simultaneously humdrum and otherworldly appeal of those gentlemens clubs, all oak panelling and ironed copies of The Times- you were born in to this world or, rather more likely, you were not born into this world, and if you weren't then you were destined to forever be peering through the doors, trying to catch a peek of a class beyond your own. The history of Radio 3 is genuinely fascinating and worthy of this sort of study- there are some extraordinary characters and anecdotes in these pages. But what we are reading here is not really the story of those few English eccentrics, but an entire culture, a society of the elite. The Third Programme as microcosm of 20th century British society's ills.
You won't be finding many black faces in these pages. Try and introduce the idea of Race into what we're reading here and think how utterly laughable it would be to imagine black composers / musicians having their music played on Radio 3. Being introduced by black presenters. Of course that's true of Western classical music as a whole in the period covered by this book- jazz is mentioned now and again, rather begrudgingly, though only Gershwin (Gershwin!) gets a name-check. And, with the inevitability of one of society's majority-minorities following another, we can say the same of women. There are women, let's be upfront here, mentioned in these pages, but usually (not exclusively) because of their distinctive, silky voices. And silky of course= sex. At least women would have been allowed to listen to the Third Programe. Tolerated at least. As long as they fit certain educational criteria.
None of this is really mentioned by Carpenter. Hardly relevant to his story. And yet it should be- Radio 3 had the potential to be revolutionary. Instead it was cowardly and lazy. Is it nowadays? Probably not. I wouldn't know. But the moment has passed. The radio elite had the potential to change the world, and they didn't. Revolutions in music they sneered at and mocked, but ultimately had to go along with- not until Classic FM came along could 20th century music be comfortably done away with. But it wasn't only the economically elite running the Third Programme, but also the intellectually elite, and they did nothing- not a jot- to improve the world.
The history of the Third Programme is a history of vile, bullying men, unwilling to listen to any voice other than their own, and sensitive aesthetes steamrollered by their own culture. Still- an addictive book.
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As an aside, the story of 'Mobile', a hoax piece broadcast by Hans Keller and Susan Bradshaw (a woman! but oh a woman of terribly minor significance I'm afraid) in 1961 is fascinating.
'The idea struck us as we listened to the faintly melodious sounds provided by the moving of chairs after a concert- we used drums, xylophones, cymbals, glasses, ashtrays, and anything else handy. At one time we were whistling, using an echo effect...' Noting in passing that this is the kind of music I spend a considerable amount of my life listening to these days- do recordings of this exist? As a hoax of course this is pretty obvious, childish stuff, but the idea is magical.

Slight Return

Popping this down as a placeholder because I've missed blogging even if it does feel like whispering sweet nothings into the abyss. Things have changed a lot from a personal perspective since January, and while I don't particularly want to dwell on those changes, I am finding myself more and more frequently feeling I want to record 'stuff' somwhere other than a paper journal. It's hard though- I read back on some of those earlier entries and think: 'that doesn't sound like my voice' or, worse, 'that sounds like me trying to sound like someone else'. I can't imagine other people worry about this while tipping their ephemeral crap onto the page, so I'm going to try not to worry- hopefully in time I may even start to recognize myself in the stuff I write here. So- more to come, hopefully.

Silver Linings

Particularly noisy night last night, and the shock of sudden peace at half past one was almost overwhelming. Terribly, terribly hackneyed of course, but I became so aware of the little noises, the friendly noises, the ones that nourish rather than eat away at us. The wind, the old house's pipes, my wife's breathing- the familiar stuff made something to cherish again. And with moments of calm being as elusive as they are for me at the moment, part of me wanted to fight sleep and enjoy the sounds of the ordinary for a while. Of course another- far more sensible- part of me was well aware that I had to get up for work at seven and that I had just come off the back of another night with less than two hours sleep. Appreciating the aesthetics of the commonplace is all very well, but time and place, time and place.

Klaus Lang- Einfalt.Stille.

You'll have to forgive me, I'm dipping my toe into unfamiliar territory. This is a CD from four of five years ago, a very pretty CD that I've seen mentioned in despatches, and I've been playing it, and I've been enjoying it. Though there are, at a push, similarities to Feldman (and also Charlemagne Palestine's 'Karenina', though I may be hearing similarities just because I've played that through once or twice this year as well, in a smilar state of mind), it's hard to pin a label on, and to feel you've truly placed it.

A fifty minute piece for delicate instrumentes played softly and hesitantly- the trouble is, lovely though the music may be, and it truly is lovely, it becomes background music. Inexorably and inevitably background music. Background music of the highest order perhaps, but all the same I've played it through perhaps seven or eigh times now since the turn of the year, and I can't say it has engaged me from start to finish even once. Now that's no particular problem- if I'm going to play music while I'm reading, I want it to be something like this, but I'm not sure Klaus Lang set out to write a piece of rarefied ambient music, and damn I feel like I'm letting him down. But there you go.

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In a sense, the ongoing problems I'm having with our neighbours has eased, in that I'm starting to see a light at the end of the tunnel, albeit a light five or six months- at least- down the line. In another sense the problem has deteriorated. We live in a ground floor flat- a comfortable and spacious one, and one that we've turned into a decent family home, but there's no getting around the fact that we have people living above us, and people living above us whose standards and ideas of responibility don't tie in with our own. On one occasion this week they finally hit the sack at 4:15 AM, but there have been a couple of other occasions in the last few days perhaps more relevant in regards to music, and concepts of peace and silence.

We sleep, my wife and I, directly below a bedroom, and below, I'm afraid, a bedroom with no carpeting, just bare floorboards. Ocassional creakines then, only to be expected. Alas, we are being subjected to prolonged periods of walking about on bare floorboards, backwards, forwards, backwards, forwards, for two hours or more at a time. With occasional breaks of perhaps five or six seconds of rest. Odd behaviour, unfathomable behaviour, and a quite dreadful form of torture. But our problems, not yours, imaginary reader, I don't want us to have to dwell on it...

Over the months we've been living here I've tried to develop various strategies for dealing with this though, and one has been the judicious use of the ipod- 'Live in Seattle', black metal, Cecil Taylor at his most energetic. My night-time listening is perhaps not what I would necessrily opt for in an ideal world as I drift off to sleep but, again, there you go.

But 'Einfalt.Stille.'? No. This won't do at all. This music has uses, but it will not block out the noises of inconsiderate humans. A warning, just in case you find yourself in a similar situation.

Don Cherry- Eternal Rhythm

Since the turn of the year my listening activities- aside from the half hour commute to work- have centred around the very wonderful Admirable Restraint radio shows up at archive.org. There's a whole world of music going on here that has apparently passed me by completely, and I suspect I'm going to be spending a lot of time and money investigating it further over the coming months. Always nice to have a plan. When you start discovering subcultures within subcultures you can find yourself in some dizzying places, and they are the kind of places that suit me just fine.

I've also heard Don Cherry's 'Eternal Rhythm' a handful of times too, a scratchy old vinyl rip lifted from the dark side- Don Cherry has always been just a name to me, a name on a list or hidden away in a review: I had no idea he had made music quite like this. Admittedly, my relationship with jazz has always been a secretive, sordid thing- brief passionate half hours in the photocopying room and then we don't talk to each other for months. All sorts of wonderful thing have drifted beneath my radar I'm sure.

This starts like a sunrise- flutes, bells, all the sounds of waking. A crash and then in come the percussion, the piano, and all the while the flute bold and liquid. Cherry the multi-instrumentalist then- he seems to be playing everything he can get his hands on here, and with a graceful calm abandon that will bring light to any room you play this music in. Yeah, it's that kind of record- it invites bad poetry. This is such happy, invigorating, creative, joyous music, ful of themes that dance round your head and an inexpressible sense of well-being that you really have to savour- you find it so rarely.