Christof Kurzmann / Susanna Gartmayer

Black Burst Sound Generator

Black Burst Sound Generator

Moozak MZK #014

Part of the loose amalgamation of musicians who make up Vienna’s advanced sound s scene, clarinetist Susana Gartmayer moves nimbly through experimental genres from improv-rock to the Vegetable Orchestra to electronics–affiliated sessions such as these. Instructively the discs are also the yin and yang of such programs. Paired with filmmaker, installation artist and musician Brigitta Bödenauer on Black Burst Sound Generator (BBSG), she mates contra-alto clarinet snores and snarls to the equally low-pitched drones, splatters and shakes processed by Bödenauer. Possessing a wider prism of sounds, the tracks on Smaller Sad link her bass clarinet techniques with programmed synthesis from Christof Kurzmann’s Ppooll, rubber band and voice.

Together since 2012, BBSG specializes in ambient drones which arrive in catalytic bursts and whose brittle percussive qualities dominate the narrative as the clarinettist’s basso extensions and repetitive stops fill in the rest of the sequences. Intensifying as the disc evolves an idiosyncratic beat also makes its presence felt via thick tongue slaps framed in a reverberating electronic continuum. Reaching a zenith of slurs and vibrating, the improvisations are finally linked with a fluid series of whooshing explosions and end with an altissimo scream from Gartmayer.

With a lower-pitched instrument, Gartmayer adds more sonic layers to the other disc’s program with clarion whistles and airy burbles that mix with ring modular-like gonging and whistles and squeaks from the synthesized program. Kurzmann has been duetting on-and-off with Gartmayer since 2014, as well as expressing his programmed synthesis with the likes of Ken Vandermark. Moderato rather than bottom pitched Smaller Sad’s earlier tracks establish polyphonic connections with reed flutters and flattement as the electronic output encompasses ghostly whistles, and Vocodor-like interwoven vocal refrains that by creating repetitive patter harmonize both instruments. Obviously designed as a defining statement, the final “Novi Sad” which at more than 16½ minutes is almost as long as the three preceding tracks together, takes this integration to a logical conclusion. It pulsates with an almost ceaseless mosaic of aviary reed peeps, split tones and woody snarls as well as backwards tape flanges and narrow crying oscillations from the ppooll. Avoiding cacophony, the clarinettist concludes the narrative with a near-melodic, horizontal line, which also skirts droning under-his-breath recitations from Kurzmann. Anything but a conventional clarinet recital, both discs point out Gartmayer’s canny affiliation with, and accommodation to, electronics.

–Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Black: 1. Register 2. Spook 3. Keys 4. Dauerwelle 5. Tightrope 6. Viola

Personnel: Black: Susanna Gartmayer (contra alto clarinet) and Brigitta Bödenauer (electronics)

Track Listing: Smaller: 1. Smaller Forms 2. Little Rage 3. Dip 4. Novi Sad.

Personnel: Smaller: Susanna Gartmayer (bass clarinet) and Christof Kurzmann (Ppooll, rubber band and voice)