Philip Samartzis/Michael Vorfeld

Scheckenrock
Non Visual Objects NVO021

Bleffert/Schliemann

Abtausch/Short Cuts

Nurnichtnur Berslaton 109 08 11

Tatsuya Nakatani

Abiogenesis

HH 9

Michael Vorfeld

Flugangst

Monotype Records Mono 031

Remote from the standard solo or drum battle CDs of contemporary Jazz as Sun Ra’s purported birth place of Saturn is from Earth, these exemplary instances of percussive Free Music demand a different way of listening. While percussion extensions are obviously the leitmotifs here, the basic building blocks of harmony and rhythm have been put aside for the designation of drums and allied percussion as sound sources. These sounds must to be celebrated for their unique textures and beats; not heard as ancillary tones dependent on any others.

The spirits of micotonalism, minimalism and other so-called New notated musics also infuses these CDs by mostly German percussionists. But most of the soloists would likely admit that accomplished mid-century Jazz drummers ranging from Max Roach and Art Blakey to Milford Graves and Sunny Murray were as important and influential for drum liberation as formal composers in the European tradition.

Except for Trier-based Bernd Bleffert, featured on Abtausch, whose expanded kit encompasses any number of home-made or found noise makers, the other drummers have parallel careers, playing in improvised music ensembles. For instance Wiesbaden-based Wolfgang Schliemann, also on Abtausch, works with musicians such as bassist Ulrich Phillipp and saxophonist Dirk Marwedel. Japanese-born, Pennsylvania-based percussionist Tatsuya Nakatani, whose Abiogenesis is a solo disc, plays in bands with the likes of saxophonist Frank Gratkowski and trumpeter Nate Wooley. With art and sound installations and exhibits plus frequent solo concert performances, Berlin-based Michael Vorfeld – in duo on Scheckenrock and solo on Flugangst – regularly improvises with reedist Chris Heenan and pianist Reinhold Friedl, to name two.

Melbourne-based sound artist Philip Samartzis may be the anomaly here. But his duo with Vorfeld on Scheckenrock is mostly concerned with non-specific, non-harmonic percussion impulses. Here he puts his ideas on spatialization into practice. Sourcing the sounds from his mixed and reconstituted field recordings of natural and constructed environments, he abuts and amplifies Vorfeld’s percussion and stringed instruments creations. “Schaube” is the track on Scheckenrock which appears to encompass the most field recordings. At least it seems as if lowing wild animal or wild human cries are contrapuntally mixed and interspaced among the granular scrapes and flanges, strident cymbal stasis and small instrument clatter that occupy most of the space of it and the CD`s other tracks. Many times the resulting tones are unique, sounding as if they include the smack of two solid objects against one another or capturing the aural vibration from a cocktail shaker.

Ranging from Onkyo to oscillations, additional timbres inhabit the entire disc, none of which are easily identifiable. Somewhere a cricket chirp is audible, for example, or is it that the sound of a wet finger rubbed across a drum top? Aural reflections of what could be produced by strumming on a taut string, knocking on a wooden surface, rubbing on a balloon, smacking a massive gong or rapping on a kettle drum ruff are present as well. But most textures undulate singularly before combining with understated spinning, buzzing and signal processing from Samartzis’ electronics. Overall, though, the result is more individual than one driven by a computer alone. That because as the CD evolves the oscillations get rougher and more invasive while remaining opaque.

Consecrated to what can be created from acoustic percussion implements, Abtausch/Short Cuts is as novel as the other duo CD and as inimitable. Latterly living up to its title, the disc’s final, more than 27½ minutes, are divided among 28 cuts that hover around the one-minute range. While appealing in their brevity, each track appears to be the solution to a separate technical challenge. The question as to why they couldn’t have been combined into a longer, more varied text arises. Included are electronic-like impulses produced by acoustic instruments; sandpaper-like strokes on malleable material; e-bow buzzes; pops and clatters on the ground that could result from the bounce of billiard balls at one juncture, or tennis balls at another; resonations from what could be an unreconstructed oil drum; a duet between woodblocks and vibes; unaffiliated scrapes and scraps; and parallel strokes from a vibraphone and a marimba.

More generic to percussion versatility are Bleffert’s and Schliemann’s lengthier cuts, some of which go on for more than five minutes. Narrowly escaping tonal sameness, the outstanding performances are those which mash together unexpected resonations and suggest the properties of glass, rubber and bells as well as the more common skin, metal and wood. Another strategy, as on track three, is when broken-chord expansions from both sides break the time into smaller and smaller partials so that the result is as rigid as it is unique. Another, such as track five, alternates the beats that arise from suspended gamelan-like bells with strokes that could be produced by a North African dumbek Track four in contrast intermingles the spatialized pumps and pings heard in the clangs of bicycle bells and the abrasive scratches of a ratchet on a guiro.

Taking a different approach is Nakatani, who with his peripatetic background, would be expected to be conversant with the resounding properties of so-called ethnic percussion. Yet Abiogenesis, improvisations for bowed gong and percussion, is very much an atmospheric, low-key affair, reminiscent of Japanese Onkyo or British micro-minimalist sounds. Although a Jazz-oriented tinge can be sensed when Nakatani rolls and pops his drum tops and spanks his cymbals, his drum philosophy is more other directed. Often positioned on a transitive ostinato that encompasses pitch-sliding rasps and quivering echoes that also evoke field recordings, the percussionist’s intermezzos include sharpened drum sticks rubbed on un-lathed cymbals; violin bows scratched on a gong; mouth breaths directly on drum tops; and oscillating drones. Certain tracks feature matchless strategies, as when grinding and blurry spins subtly move from the background building into a crescendo of severe granular sequences then reverse into near inaudible flutters. Another track is made up of five minutes of layered, abrasive tones that include enough extensions and partials from the sounded notes that a buzzing, aural afterimage remains after the piece’s completion.

Vorfeld’s unique strings-and-percussion contraption on Flugangst is also concerned with the scope of sound(s) and silence(s). Over the course of seven inventions, his rolls and reverberations pulse, pop, pluck and pitter-patter, depicting the rasping buzz of excited strings or outlining additional textures from metal and wood insides as well as drum skins with vibe-like resonation or strokes. Another stylist who can suggest electronic passages acoustically, Vorfeld’s col legno strokes or surface raps somehow manage to reveal not only the timbres of the notes themselves, but memories of complementary textures when the root note is sounded.

Demonstrations of these techniques are clearest on “Peilung” and “Azimut”. On the latter, time is stretched alongside shredding strings and buzzing cymbals. As both tones intersect, the quivering lines become blunt, distanced and less insistent until succeeded by droning loops, reaching a climax of reverse flanges like that heard from a backwards-running tape reel. As for “Peilung”, pointillist squeals and microtonal drones give way to stroked and strummed strings blended with hand-tapped rolls, thumps and rim smacks. When the resonance appears ready to disappear into static stillness, inchoate scrapes and ear-wrenching staccato rasps return, leading to a finale of individual gyrating timbres.

Not for the faint-hearted, beat-mongers or those whose idea of how rhythm should sound is already set, these CDs instead offer tantalizing glimpses into how some innovators view percussion’s future.

--Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Scheckenrock: 1. Krause 2. Wams 3. Schaube

Personnel: Scheckenrock: Philip Samartzis (electronics) and Michael Vorfeld (percussion and stringed instruments)

Track Listing: Abtausch: 1. 03:12 2. 02:57 3. 03:31 4. 04:42 5. 6. 03:29 7. 04:12 8. 05:22 9. 05:02 10.-37. 27:34

Personnel: Abtausch: Bernd Bleffert and Wolfgang Schliemann (miscellaneous percussion instruments)

Track Listing: Abiogenesis: 1. Untitled 1 2. Untitled 2 3. Untitled 3 4. Untitled 4 5. Untitled 5 6. Untitled 6 7. Untitled 7 8. Untitled 8 9. Untitled 9 10. Untitled 10 11. Untitled 11 12. Untitled 12 13. Untitled 13 14. Untitled 14 15. Untitled 15 16. Untitled 16 17. Untitled 17 18. Untitled 18

Personnel: Abiogenesis: Tatsuya Nakatani (bowed gong and percussion)

Track Listing: Flugangst: 1. Peilung 2. Taumel 3. Parabel 4. Scheinlot 5. Turbulenz 6. Stufung 7. Azimut

Personnel: Flugangst: Michael Vorfeld (percussion and stringed instruments)

March 29, 2011

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