Oren Ambarchi/Gunter Muller/Philip Samartzis - Strange Love

Oren Ambarchi/Gunter Muller/Philip Samartzis
Strange Love
For4Ears 1448

Drones. The term undoubtedly gets applied too loosely in this music. I tend to think of most relatively continuous, in-some-sense smooth, having as one of its components some kind of buzz or growl kinds of music as drone. Or having drone aspects. Maybe. My knowledge of the music of all three of the participants on this very fine recording led me to expect something dronish in nature. Their work generally involves stretches of sound where at least certain elements remain fairly constant, sticking around for extended periods while others are added or removed. So in a way, at least as I use the term, this is drone music.

It begins with a low thrum, pulsating in irregular contractions, quickly joined by a wavering, very high pitch. Just these two things, their cycles unaligned, create a fascinating line, something akin to what Alvin Lucier achieves, where two fairly pure tones interact to generate ghost pulses. Several minutes in, a middle tone appears, slightly fuzzy, granulating the affair a bit, texturizing the music delightfully. This additive and subtractive strategy is something I find immensely appealing but the key, as always, is in the choices. There are perhaps an infinity of possible good decisions to be made but, a la Cantor, a far greater infinity of bad ones! As in much of this sort of improv, a music so seemingly wide open, it’s those choices that make or break a recording. Muller enjoys injecting looped rhythms and he does so here now and then (I’m assuming it’s Gunter), a temporary spine along which to drape a threatening growl, a shawl of static, a nest of buzz. The music doesn’t grow so much as it spreads, taking on particles of beauty or detritus as it sees fit, abandoning others. This is the first of two pieces, “cooler”, recorded live at the What Is Music? festival in 2002. It gradually becomes grainier, the sonic elements utilized getting rougher, more particulate (including some voice samples from, again I’m assuming, Samartzis). There’s a build-up in volume intensity in the last several minutes, and an interesting concurrent rise in “drama” (or at least anxiety) before everything’s subsumed in a stack of whistling harmonics.

Part of me, listening to music like this, wonders what could have gone “wrong”. Does the basic pathway or situation chosen more or less guarantee an aesthetically satisfying result? I don’t think so by any means and, as mentioned above, have to believe it comes down to choices made on the spot. Not that it doesn’t ultimately devolve to a matter of taste with regard to the appropriateness, wisdom, discernment of those choices, but for me, the balance between “rightness” and “surprise” is struck quite well. Rightness in the retroactive sense of, “Yes, that sounded very natural and unforced”, surprise in that, as natural as it sounds to me now, it’s something I never would’ve thought of before hearing it.

The second track is “warmer”, compiled in the studio in late 2003. Warmer, I suppose it is, beginning in similar territory to “cooler”, but with the crucial addition of Ambarchi’s softly strummed guitar. Tapes of children’s voices sounding as though recorded on the street, ambient city noises and wind flutters emerge over a subtle, low-range rhythm. The voices, recalling Ferrari, are strangely welcome here and missed when passed by. It’s an element rarely found in a music that is nominally all-inclusive of sounds and yet another pleasant surprise here. Ringing tones predominate the closing minutes of the track, again mixed with the room-molded conversation of a group of people, a wonderful juxtaposition.

Are these drone pieces? There’s a continuity, an underlying though varying hum that causes me to think of it as such. But whatever, “Strange Love” is a lovely, tactilely lush and disarmingly imaginative album. Especially recommended for those who have heard Muller but not yet gotten around to the two fine gentlemen from Australia, each of whom has released plenty of excellent work on his own.