AMBARCHI/MÜLLER/SAMARTZIS

strange love
FOR4EARS CD 1448

NO FURNITURE
No Furniture
Creative Sources CS 009 CD

For all intents and purposes, it appears as if the interaction between electronics and acoustic instruments has become the paramount preoccupation of improvising musicians in Northern Europe and is rapidly spreading.

But even with bandstands filled with computers, samplers, ipods and minidisks, the results don’t necessarily sound identical as is shown by the sounds on these two CDs. They do prove that this electro-acoustic engrossment is universal, however.

Although the members of No Furniture are all from Berlin, the label on which its three-part rumination is available is based in Lisbon. Moreover, while Günter Müller, who has been involved with this sort of interface for years lives in Switzerland, his helpmates on STRANGE LOVE, recorded in Melbourne, are Australian sound artists.

One facet of this sort of improvisation illustrated here is its negation of distance. “Cooler”, the first tune, recorded live, sounds little different than “Warmer”, which was created by Müller from tracks recorded at different times in Sydney, Melbourne and Itingen, Switzerland.

Müller’s associates bring different musical baggage to the creations. Philip Samartzis, who supplies electronics and environmental sounds here, is a composer, sound artist, surround sound and immersive environment researcher and university lecturer who has recorded solo CDs and organized sound installations. Fellow Aussie Oren Ambarchi, who adds guitar and electronics, has gone from rock bands to playing with expressive improvisers like Swedish bassist Johan Berthling and British guitarist Keith Rowe.

At first “Cooler” moves between silences, sine-wave style whistles and electronic drones. As the fluttering drones become more circular like the sound of a small motor starting up, hints of steady rolling percussion and muted guitar reverb make their appearance. Soon rippling static hiss and oscillating buzzes take on a national cast with wombat-like scratches and lower-pitch didjeridoo-like tones make their appearance. Sonic recreations of water dripping are then mixed with hisses and what could be rubbed textures. As chugging assembly line tones turn to buzz saw roars, pealing bells and the occasional six-string chord are heard, followed, after a prolonged pause, by what is probably minidisk replay of the proceeding noises played back at higher volume. Before guitar reverb and vibrating, organ-grinder flutters return the piece to the primeval fluttering static, the pre-recorded sounds of small children playing alternates with rumbling buzzes.

More obtuse, “Warmer” finds harmonica like timbres and fluttering hisses coagulating into bell pealing and organ-like tones mixed with echoing guitar reverb and wavering sine wave signals. After children’s voices are revisited again, the output hardens into muted, marching tempo drumbeats and snoring jackhammer blows. As quivering electronic timbres gradually become louder and more insistent, they’re intercut with distorted guitar runs. Just before the end, the sounds of noisy restaurant patrons give way to an echoing, rubbed glass tube-like resonation that travels from side to side.

With two of the three participants manipulating instruments as well as electronic devices, NO FURNITURE has a completely different cast, often related to the physical breath limitations of trumpeter Axel Dörner and clarinetist Kai Fagaschinski. Boris Baltschun’s sampler is the third construct. Baltschun has experience with this electro-acoustic interface as he works regularly with trombonist Günther Christmann and drummer Burkhard Beins.

Neither Dörner, who also uses a computer here, nor Fagaschinski is in any way a conventional player, however. The trumpeter has invented a harsh, almost electro-acoustic brass technique which he has displayed in situations features inside pianist Andrea Neumann and saxophonist John Butcher, to name two. Noisy, abstract and often pre-melodic, the clarinetist doesn’t so much play his axe as conceptually force air through it to see what results. A veteran solo improviser, he also works in situations with guitarist Michael Renkel and laptopist Christof Kurzmann.

“... [symbol table]” is this CD’s most distinctive track, as its twists and turns illustrate both the electric and the acoustic components of the band. Initially it shapes up as a melange of the repetitive hisses and gurgles of what’s probably backwards running tapes, then stop-and-start, cylindrical tones, followed by air forced through the bell of the trumpet without moving the valves. Soon as this sound turn to fierce growls, Fagaschinski pumps lighter, fluttering tones into the equation and controlled signals oscillate from the sampler.

Following a few seconds of silence, electronically created intermittent power surges presage juicy, persistent snarls from trumpet, at least until the sampler output turns into something resembling harpsichord-like continuum. As the miasma of tones solidifies into a mass, whirling, tornado-like textures give way to Bronx cheer buzzes from the trumpet, plus low-pitched renal snarls and tongue percussion from the reed, until lapsing into silence.

Surrounding this track, the two other pieces are alive with rubbery tones and vibrated static to the extent that the textures are often felt rather than heard. On “.... [symbol bed]” minute clarinet trills and bird whistles vie with an overlay of static and the squeals of items being slid across the studio floor. Pulsating sampled color then gives way to the sounds of heavy air being forced through the bell and body tube of the horn as bantam jackhammer whacks meet reed smears and brassy buzzed grace notes. After a fluttering single reed trill is heard, then vanishes, textures coalesce into a droning pitch midway between booting up a computer and the clangorous innards of a mechanical toy.

As with the best of acoustic improvised music, each of the trios here has adapted electronics to its own needs and conceptions.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Furniture: 1.... [symbol chair] 2.... [symbol table] 3.... [symbol bed]

Personnel: Furniture: Axel Dörner (trumpet and computer); Kai Fagaschinski (clarinet); Boris Baltschun (sampler)

Track Listing: strange: 1. Cooler 2. Warmer

Personnel: strange: Oren Ambarchi (guitar and electronics); Günter Müller (selected percussion, mds, ipod, electronics); Philip Samartzis (electronics and environmental sounds)

June 7, 2004

OREN AMBARCHI/JOHAN BERTHLING

My Days are Darker than your nights
Hapna H 10

DAFELDECKER/KURZMANN/DRUMM/ERIKM/DIEB13/NOETINGER
Dafeldecker/Kurzmann/Drumm/eRikm/Dieb13/Noetinger
Charhizma 020

Perhaps the key to really satisfying improvised electro-acoustic performances is related to the number of players present. At least the group grope that populates the final track on the Charhizma CD here provides more than enough tones and textures to differentiate -- and elevate -- it above the other selections.

Self-aggrandizement plays very little part of this music, which thrives on nicknames -- dieb13 and eRikm here -- and a conception of the program as undivided tonality. For instance the six tracks were recorded in Berlin, Granz, Austria and Vienna, but run together as if they were one performance.

Yet, with everyone on board -- Austrians Christof Kurzmann on clarinet and G3 and Werner Dafeldecker on bass and electronics plus American Kevin Drumm on guitar and synthesizer and Frenchman Jerome Noetinger on electroacoustic devices, not to mention eRikm on electronics and Dieb13 on turntables -- the soundfield suddenly becomes that much more expansive. Rather than the intermittent pulses and drones that characterize much of the disc, there are drum beat intimations, the sound of a jet taking off, the ricochet of a door stopper, something that could be triggered feedback, a fire drill siren, scraping noises, static rustle and an approximation of what seems to be a robot executing trampoline jumps.

Trying to ascribe individual sounds to individual instruments would be pointless. And it helps to note that the gang is made up of tricksters too. Although the final piece is timed at 5:10, after seven minutes of silence when it supposedly finishes, sounds suddenly radiate again for another four minutes or so, featuring bass chord echoes, pulsating sine waves, pedal coloration, whistles, horse whinnies and signals from outer space.

Also absorbing is the penultimate track, which features Noetinger’s only other appearance on the CD. An old hand in trio situations like this -- he also recorded an exceptional disc with pianist Sophie Agnel and Lionel Marchetti on tapes and electronics -- he, Kurzmann and Dafeldecker manage to create something that at times suggests that all the technology, keyboards and mechanics are underwater, as bubbling squeaks and whistles percolate to the surface. Other sonic adventures include intermittent squeals, what could be a real, live motor running and bird-like electronic chirps that resemble the sounds of a flock of wild fowl attacking the interface. Underneath all this is the minute aural suspicion that diminutive ants are somehow manipulating microscopic sidewalk drills.

Centrepiece of the disc, though less satisfying than some other pieces, is the abrasive “Berlin1” -- almost 21 minutes of an assembly line of scraping metal -- courtesy of the entire crew minus Noetinger. Although EuroImprov followers may be hard pressed to connect these sounds to Dafeldecker’s work with Polwechsel, which makes a virtue of near silence, he had a history of playing drone-based improv with others. Perhaps too it’s his bass -- or Drumm’s guitar -- which delineates the occasional chord heard. Among the wavering and repetitious drones and buzzes are pulses that, probably arising from the G3 or synthesizer could emanate from vibes, percussion, bells, maracas, or even a primate’s throat. Where the clarinet tones are supposed to appear is anyone’s guess, though.

Before the high-pitched track dissolves from a variegated, wavering drone that seem to take up all available audio space into static, another dynamic can be heard. It’s a recurrent chord pattern that, like a similar motif in the work of British experimental band AMM, creates a base on which other tones are displayed.

AMM seems to figure into the concept of the other CD, which features one slightly more than 30-minute improvisation by Australian guitarist Oren Ambarchi and Swede Johan Berthling playing harmonium. Ambarchi, who has interacted with AMM’s guitarist Keith Rowe, would seem to be perfectly at home in this setting. But the setting is a bit unusual for Berthling, an exceptional Swedish bassist, who usually works in jazz/improv with countrymen like pianist Sten Sandell and drummer Raymond Strid. In fact much of this CD can be tough sledding for many listeners. It’s definite that the piece would wear out its welcome if it went on any longer.

Most of the time it seems as if the two performers are extending variations on a single, dense, droning tone, which swells like a mammoth cathedral organ ejaculation. Pulsations billow up from elsewhere after a while, but the closest approximation to the sound would be bagpipe timbres. The idea -- as with some of AMM’s discs -- is to so overload the organ of Corti that you begin to hear variations within the viscous noise. Somehow, in fact, here a third timbre appears, though you can’t really be sure to which instrument it can be ascribed. Finally, in the last few minutes, the hint of guitar fuzztone surfaces and the solid aural mass seems to break up slightly, with the harmonium defining the bottom and static whirring on top. Just before the fade as well, the guitar line parses itself down to slightly resemble Pete Townshend’s intro to “Baba O’Riley”.

Improvisation always includes the danger of unevenness, and both these CDs exhibit that, as well as portions of great creativity. Those interested in change should probe these discs, but be prepared to take the less-than-stellar with the stimulating.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: DKDMDN: 1. Berlin* 1 2. Graz 2# 3. Wien# 1 4. Berlin 2+ 5. Berlin 3+#

Personnel: DKDMDN: Christof Kurzmann (clarinet and G3); Kevin Drumm (guitar and synthesizer [except track 4]); Werner Dafeldecker (bass and electronics); eRikm (electronics*); Dieb13 (turntables#); Jerome Noetinger (electroacoustic devices+)

Track listing: Days: 1. My days are darker than your nights

Personnel: Days: Oren Ambarchi (guitar); Johan Berthling (harmonium)

September 1, 2003