Michael Renkel / Luca Venitucci
Still
l’Innomable 04
Guitarist Renkel, recently heard to good effect in his collaboration (as half of Activity Center) with Phil Minton on Absinth, here teams with accordionist Luca Venitucci for three astringent but fairly rewarding improvisations. It’s a subdued affair, a touch drier than perhaps I’d have liked to have heard, but contains a good deal of careful listening and considered conversation, making good use of the sonic capabilities of their instruments, Renkel credited additionally with zither and “preparations”, Venitucci with flight-case (a first?) and “objects”.
On the initial and longest track (about 27 minutes), “second order observation”, Venitucci sometimes sounds as though he’s emulating Sachiko M, casting out extremely high, sine-like pitches from his accordion, shafts of tone around which Renkel weaves with delicate quasi-scalar strumming or harsher, similarly high-end bowing. Space is employed quite well as when, a few minutes later, soft squeezebox breaths engage with spiky harassment from the guitar, a very attractive and unhurried conversation. The two readily shift attitudes, Renkel soon acquiescing into soft chords while his partner scrabbles nervously about until a gentle truce is reached and an almost pastoral interlude drifts by. Maybe the piece goes on a few minutes longer than necessary as some agitation that sets in during the final moments distracts me a bit from the overall tenor of the work, but by and large, it coheres pretty well.
“serraglio” begins in not dissimilar fashion with nervous scrabbling by Renkel and soft, wheezy accordion. However, a more disjointed feel gradually manifests, the brief episodes flickering in and out of space like lit areas seen from a passing train. It ends up being less satisfying than I’d hoped, perhaps because of what I find to be excessive aridity in execution although that appears to often be part and parcel of Renkel’s approach (I’m not otherwise familiar, I don’t think, with Venitucci and therefore am not certain how typical or not this session is for him). The final selection, “interferenze”, is by far my pick of the lot, wherein the duo gets something resembling a drone up and running, Venitucci on ratchety objects (maybe that flight case, too!), Renkel obsessively iterating plucked notes. When, at its conclusion, an organ-y accordion finds itself in the company of sparse bells and low, thrummed guitar, a very special aura is created. Throughout, the shifts in mood unfold at a natural pace and the ten-minute piece achieves a stand-alone solidity hinted at with greater of lesser success in the others.
An interesting recording, worth hearing. Info at: http://www.linnomable.com/.
~ Brian Olewnick
Posted by Brian Olewnick on May 1, 2005 10:42 AMAnother nice review Brian, thanks. I liked this disc on the whole. Some interesting passages dotted amongst what comes across to my less than erudite ears as a pretty frantic search for a common language between the two musicians.
Despite its title the CD doesn't really ever allow you to settle as a listener. (possibly a good thing?) The music comes across as something of a stressed out affair, Renkel and Venitucci scurrying around throwing an impressively wide range of sounds into the pot, every now and again landing upon a combination that really works before taking off again with a further flurry of activity.
The strongest moments for me though come when a little breathing space is allowed into the proceedings, such as midway through the first piece when the pace is broken up with frequent short silences, and during that beautifully poignant close to the final track rightly mentioned by Brian as the highlight of the disc.
If I had to pick fault with the CD, to my ears it has a claustrophobic feel to it, it sounds like it was recorded with a very close mic. The music sits right at the front of the sonic stage and therefore has a very 'in your face' feel to it. As no technical expert I may have this completely wrong, but it seems to give the recording a very brittle feel, lacking in warmth. I am not sure if this is what you are getting at when you mention the dry feel to the disc Brian?
This release does highlight two of the more interesting and refreshing changes in recent years to impact on improvised music. One being the choice of instrumentation. More and more muscians seem to be picking up less familiar tools in search of new sounds and possibilites. Besides the novelty of the flight case I am not sure that zither and accordian have been heard together on an improv disc before. I am looking forward to the bagpipes/tambourine/theremin trio due on Grob soon...!
The second thing that made me stop and think when I picked up this disc is how modern technologies have opened up the possibilities for this kind of marginal music to be heard at all. This is a CDr release from Luka's consistently fine l'innomable label in deepest Slovenia... I just wonder if I would ever have had the chance to listen to this music before the advent of the CDr as a medium for publishing music and the internet as a medium for shrinking the world into a 17" monitor screen? Possibly not.
Posted by: Richard Pinnell at May 1, 2005 4:41 PMThanks for your comments, Richard
The dryness or "lack of warmth" I pick up is likely simply a matter of personal taste. There are certain musicians who evince a tinge of post-serialism in their language, something that I'm not especially fond of. Others here, for instance (I think) Walt and Dan, are a bit more partial to this angle and might enjoy "Still" even more than I did. Actually, I'm not sure I would use "lack of warmth" as a description; too many connotations that are beside the point for me. I have nothing against a certain kind of approach that some might think of as "cool" (as in, purportedly unemotional). But I've always tended to mentally classify music as (among other things) liquid or dry sounding, with a general leaning toward the former. But, as I said, that's more just a personal preference on my part than any overarching value judgment and "Still" is, um, still a good disc....
Posted by: Brian Olenwick at May 1, 2005 6:27 PMThanks for the clarification Brian. I think my use of the term 'lack of warmth' was my (not very good) attempt at describing the over all feel of the music's presentation rather than any comment on its emotional content. Your words above succeed much more eloquently in describing what I was trying to get at!
On the 'dryness' question, I just dug out Dan's review of the disc at PTA out of curiosity. It made me smile to see he describes it as 'distinctly fluid' I bet you like yoghurt coated peanuts whilst he prefers dry roasted...!
That wily Warburton! Too much living in Paris for him--everything is "distinctly fluid"! :-)
Posted by: Brian Olewnick at May 2, 2005 5:18 AMDon't let's bring your Muscadet experiences at Musique Action into this Brian :) Leaving aside that kind of liquid, I tend to use wet and dry to refer to the pace of development of musical ideas, not as sound engineers do (wet = reverb), just in case anybody had misunderstood the context. Thanks for the quote Richard, but my favourite bit in that PT review was the scientific definition of Rowe's Law – "Thy guitar shall under no circumstances ever sound like a guitar" !)
Posted by: Dan Warburton at May 8, 2005 9:57 PM.................................................. © 2003 - 2006 bagatellen ..................................................