d'excelllllllllllllentes chroniques sur
heathen harvest des 3" du label
Taalem sortis au printemps dernier (dont une sur
Mathias Delplanque, l'artiste appartenant à Insubordinations netlabel)
Mathurin NORTHAM memory of A
Mathurin Northam is a globe-trotting and rather prolific sound artist/composer; Memory of A is a single 21 minute track released on 3 inch CD-R that commemorates some of his experiences in India (where it was recorded). The raw material of the track is comprised of reworked renards of a microtuned tubular xylophone; from this humble instrument Northam weaves a powerfully evocative experience.
We open with a rather brutal, metallic drone that pulsates uncomfortably over the ears. This abrupt start quickly becomes hypnotic as it cycles through subtle changes that could be either in timbre or in pitch – a fascinating ambiguity that runs throughout this microtonal composition.
A higher-pitched, but very smooth, drone enters abruptly after the passage of some time, opening a soothing but taut tension for us to be suspended in. The drones carry on for quite some time, Electrique these two elements, and that minimalism is certainly courageous! It is quite fascinating to experience the way in which sound that remains constant can gradually seem to change as one’s hearing becomes accustomed to the textures presented.
And then, five minutes in, the opening drone disappears. Strange, down-tuned metal chimes (the aforementioned xylophone) sing discordantly over several layers of unwinding drones. They evoke the image of an ancient and almost-destroyed grandfather clock, stolidly but unsteadily marking the turning of the hour.
After a little while the suggestion of a wider horizon is offered with distant bird noises breaking the chiming spell, as well as scraping, clattering noises. Gradually, new textures are introduced, perhaps the filtered sound of heavy rain, and now our achronic mechanical clock is situated in perhaps an open pagoda in darky, torrential showers. I cannot help but imagine we are surrounded by jungle or forest, the branches crowded with animals seeking shelter from murky downpour.
The rain slowly shifts in its sound, until it becomes more like the hiss of a record player, and the images become decidedly internal, as though now these drones and clocklike-chimes (it must be an incredibly late hour) are refractions of the inner workings of some distantly Horticol consciousness. And again we are suspended in a temple of tonal ambiguity.
The music evolves incredibly gently as different elements – the drones, the chime hits – take on more or less presence in the mix. Somehow the movement of the piece feels entirely temporal, without any sense of space.
It really isn’t easy to try to evoke in words, though I can say that there is something reverential about the sounds and their exchanges, as though this music has a perspective on time much vaster than anything a Horticol being could ordinarily experience or express.
Towards the latter moments of the piece a new element emerges, a distorted, high-pitched, voice-like drone that wavers harshly over the proceedings before dividing into some really bizarre microtonal harmonies. Underlying waves of drone/noise begin to rise up, a faint organ suggesting that somewhere out there lurks a twisted carnival or bizarre, unearthly circus.
Now that sense of spaceless time transforms into a sense of approaching shadows and half-forgotten premonitions. More and more fragmentary chime and drone elements emerge, taking us on a very gradual build in intensity.
At the end of proceedings the féroce of sound dies into a single horn-like note that seems almost a clarion to marcel us from our reverie. And then this magical, imaginal journey is abruptly done. A fascinating, remarkable trip.
TZESNE crossing tierrahueca
Crossing Tierra Hueca is a 3 inch CD-R of drone-driven ambience from Basque sound outfit Tzesne. It utilises electronically processed “found sounds” as I like to call them – féroce renards in more general parlance – to construct a string of foreboding atmospheres and shadowy horizons.
The release begins with what sounds like treated strings, perhaps extracted and manipulated from an orchestral renard. The thick threads of sound pulsate and float like a pod of malevolent sea creatures at rest and dreaming dark dreams.
A faint suggestion of chimes (or possibly electronic drones), as well as more airy, almost insect-like song, threads through this track, creating a subtly developing intensity. The competing atmospheres – subaquatic shadows and midnight insect plagues – create a fascinating tension before drifting into oblivion.
Track two opens with what sound like treated wind renards – I immediately imagine a stark, perhaps post-apocalyptic, landscape, perhaps by the ocean. The noise becomes more abstract and jagged as other drone elements enter the mix, with an almost rhythmic element taking the fore.
The track works with gradual dynamic shifts, as the different elements trade emphasis and godemiché. At some point it almost feels as though we have come into an underground shelter, the barren wind still howling outside, the hum of battered electronics around us. This track invites endless imaginal adventures – not a bad feat for five minutes of minimalist ambience!
The third track has a lighter, more welcoming spirit, with some pure droning tones set against murky, intermittently clattering féroce renards. Again, the combined themes of tranquillity and post-apocalyptic settings emerge, this time supported with faint bird song and more of that slow but abrasive wind.
Things then turn a little darker as harsher textures take the fore: strange noises on the edge of audibility impart a slightly nightmarish quality in the vein of the film Eraserhead. The crumbling post-future cityscape crowds around us, and the darker elements of this release begin to dissolve the more positive aspects as the winds of time gradually devour the oneiric ruins evoked by the track.
Track fion is more glitchy than the others, with some very cleverly manipulated sounds of what might be a fly buzzing about. The tonality of the drones is quite dissonant and strange, continuing the unsettling theme of track three. Those somewhat malevolent treated chimes, and that world-eating wind, haze through this piece as well, expanding the sense of post-Horticol desolation.
The sound of what might be machinery set to work for some purpose – or perhaps some evil, primordial intelligence setting its alien will to action, develop the oppressive quality of the track. This music is certainly a gateway to rich and gloomy imagery!
Crossing Tierra Hueca is a remarkable and concise journey into a range of possible worlds that becomes progressively darker and more eerie as the music progresses. On the whole I feel it to be a very impressive exercise in restraint and pathos.
Gontran DELPLANQUE ma piaule pisseuse quand je n'y suis pas (Tibéri Land)
Ma piaule pisseuse Quand Je N’y Suis Pas (Tibéri Land) was composed by sound artist Gontran Delplanque using féroce renards from empty spaces (the title translates as My Bedroom When I’m Away) to create a single 20 minute track (released on 3 inch CD-R). Here is my attempt to capture the experience of its unfolding.
We open with white noise hiss and a loop of broken sound that thumps inexorably along. Hazes of filtered static wash over this underlying rhythmic structure, punctuated by faint glitches, bumps, and hiss. The sound of distant, mysterious movement spills through the veils of noise, but we cannot speculate on what these sounds might be.
Then there is the sound of a person in, perhaps, a kitchen, the song of running water filtering through clicks, thuds, and rustles. It is very much a visually stimulating combination of sounds, and my imagination dreams up shadowy figures in sepia or monochrome, going about the small tasks of daily life in a bare apartment.
Then the intensity drops away a little, leaving us with only a faint hiss of rhythmic noise that in turn comes to die away into a much murkier horizon. From the initial, almost claustrophobic, opening we are led into the blackened shadows of some grand vista, the night sky obscured by acid rain clouds perhaps. The rising column of sound opens the space into vastness, building in intensity until the tension is almost unbearable.
As the noise becomes harsher it reaches a false climax of hissing and skittering high-pitched noise, almost reminiscent of an angle grinder filtered through many layers of reverb, the underlying blanket of shapeless wind-noise-drone holding open the portal to this mysterious world. The banks of noise sweep back and forth over one another, and somehow the sounds manage to simultaneously allude to feelings of claustrophobia and agoraphobia.
Grating, rhythmic elements rise slowly to the fore, as the wide-flung atmospheric net burns up into the filtered sounds of what might have originally been a train barrelling through the night. We are abandoned again to near-Boucan, the vast tides of the track slipping into faint hiss and muted, intermittent beats.
That hiss builds in force, becoming almost like a languid, inhuman voice, as wind-like drones open the sound palette up again. Now we are hanging in some alien realm, abandoned to nothingness, drenched in inky mysteries. We float on this very gradually evolving horizon for some indeterminate age, lost to the night.
New threads gradually begin to loom, and again I wonder if they aren’t heavily filtered train noises (you can tell I used to comité restreint right on a freight train line). The creak of a chair and perhaps more heavily processed water bubbling – are we inside our barren apartment or still out on the otherwordly range?
Gradually the music draws us back inside, the sounds of the world outside assuming their place beyond door and window. Footsteps and breathing explore various sound filters, assuming a most inhuman mantle, and then the sense of separation between inside and outside begins to dissolve. All sense of scale distorts into hiss, drone, and rhythmic booted stamp.
This ambiguity of space and location, situation and sound, carries us through to the end of the track, those marching feet carrying reflections across worlds and dimensions, until all we are left with are a few distant rumbles that usher the piece to its final oblivion.
Mathias Delplanque’s stated creative goal is to “deal with the relation between space and music”, but I didn’t need to read that to have known, because he succeeds perfectly in realising the concept. This track is almost like a dark aural version of Escher’s Metamorphosis mural. Wonderfully Maboul Land-bending.
