Ernie Althoff - dark by 6

Antboy 7

How to listen to recordings of installation pieces? How much to add mentally to what you’re hearing in a vain attempt to recapture what it might have been like to have actually seen the devices making these sounds (as well as other purely decorative elements), walked among them enjoying the change in sonic ambience as you moved? Some recordings work perfectly well on their own, others seem necessarily pruned of important elements. Ernie Althoff’s “dark by 6” is something of the latter, I think, although it’s hardly unsuccessful; it just really makes you want to have been able to experience the installations in situ.

The excerpt nature of the disc is apparent in the timings of the tracks: four of the five clock in at almost exactly 14 ½ minutes. This apparently arbitrary sectioning might be a bit off-putting but on the other hand it honestly advises the listener that he’s experiencing the work at one (at least) remove. Judging from the notes and accompanying photos, Althoff’s modus operandi is to set up numerous small machines in a room, gizmos that swing beating arms, pendulums, whisks and so on, alongside turntables mounted with bowls and dishes within which might be seeds, gravel, etc. These quasi-rhythmic but ultimately chaotic contraptions are set in motion and allowed to generate their own, semi-unpredictable clatter and hum, with a strong tendency toward the percussive or strummed. If there’s a single other sound-world with which many listeners might hear an affinity, it’s probably that of Harry Partch (the kithara-like glissandi especially), although structurally there’s no real similarity. The first two pieces in particular, “The Emergence of Mammals” and “Song of the Centipede”, have something of that feel though much looser and more rambling; rattles, chimes, wood block clunks and soft sizzles resembling some low-budget, robotic garden, each flower and insect contributing to the din (Here, one can also occasionally hear the engines of passing vehicles, a lovely and evocative element). Gentler versions of Tudor’s “Rainforest”, perhaps.

“Declivities” uses nine turntables affixed with various flatware in which seeds and marbles cavort, the dishes calibrated so as to produce a range of pitches. Others wield whisks that strike sheets of metal with sizzles attached in off-kilter rhythms. Althoff notes in his liners that installation visitors had the option of perceiving this conglomeration through “stethoscopic listening tubes”. One can only imagine but as is, it remains a fairly wondrous piece. The title track achieves a rather similar result via different means, here tripods, tin bells and clappers sent awhirl atop turntables rotating at 16rpm. In the original set-up, several other noise generating devices were hidden in the room’s darkened corners, presumably adding a layer of mystery that, unfortunately (dammit!) you can’t quite recapture on disc. The final work, “Dummy Run”, introduces a tactic that’s hardly new but isn’t utilized often enough: letting “non-professionals” in on the act. You would think that in the decades since operations like the Scratch Orchestra and Prevost’s “Silver Pyramid”, there’d be enough sound creators willing to not only cede control over their world to machines but to other people as well. Not that the results are guaranteed to be as intriguing or profound, but more as a general nod of appreciation and a gesture of anti-ivory-tower-ism. Indeed, “Dummy Run”, viewed purely on musical terms, might not be as captivating as the earlier pieces. Lots of gallery noise, conversation, etc. to which the “proper” music almost takes a back seat. And the Althoff-inspired sounds themselves, here set in motion by a small throng of gallery goers who’d been handed a “score” (essentially to activate a given instrument once they located it but also, perhaps crucially, to refrain from engaging in any “ego-tripping”), seem less well integrated and organic than before. But I’m still glad he made the attempt.

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