I moved to the equator three years ago from my house in Northern Canada for several reasons. The main one was the weather. Since being in Singapore I have yet to walk outside in the winter to see my own breath, a breath that back home would hang in the air in front of my face almost long enough to touch it and watch it shatter. Not once has my nose frozen shut.
On my bus
commute home, I hit play on the title track of this Eyvind Kang release and was
immediately struck with a winter soundtrack somewhere on a long dimly lit
backroad, somewhere back home. I exhale and there it is, my cold, white,
fragile breath.
Kang
(viola) orchestrates his ensemble who play everything from a cello, to a pedal
steel guitar, oboe, even a glass player, to paint a picture of stark beauty. He
has performed with such visionaries as Bill Frisell, Mike Patton, and Sunn O)))
in the past so he commiserates with the progressive mind. His use of tones
layered on tones blurs sight of what instrument is contributing what to the
soundscape. As soon as the sonic landscape is seemingly frozen into place, it
begins to change. With more adding and more building, the mood turns into
something else. It is done so delicately that you will feel your anxiety level
rising before noticing the shift.
Human
voices are added to the foreboding. The suspense builds to a point where, at
times, I wanted to turn off the 15 minute track to catch my breath. Instruments
turn into car horns. Instruments turn into the sound of a typewriter off in the
distance. Instruments turn into people running for their lives. It is
unrelenting. Layer after layer continue to be added to this score worthy of a
Hitchcock film. I have to open my eyes to regain my bearings and sitting across
from me is a young lady who is clearly out to get me. And then it ends, the
paranoia and the track. It begins to feel like 35 degrees Celsius again and I
can no longer see my breath.
Unfortunately,
I do not have the same emotional attachment to the remaining 2 tracks that
round out this relatively short recording. Track 2, Monadology, is a wonderful study of pulse and restraint but after
the opening track, it simply lacks a little soul.
Track 3, Thick Tarragon, the same, although once
the intensity died down and Kang started playing with all sorts of starts and
stops half way through, I have to admit, it did get my attention back.
This 39
minute, highly constructed album can seem never-ending one moment and briskly
short the next. It does take a little dedication and imagination to get the
full impact and certainly not the type of recording that you have on in the
background as you try to do anything else.
Can be
downloaded from emusic.
© stef
0 comments:
Post a Comment