l’Innomable
I don’t think I’d heard of Matthieu Saladin before this release and I definitely didn’t scan the disc info before I first popped it into my player. So my initial impression from the opening sounds was that I was listening to a flute; possibly a bass flute, but a flute. The tones were delicate, airy and beautifully hollow. I was a little startled when I read the back of the packet and discovered it to be a bass clarinet, albeit computer processed.
“Intervalles”, one of the finer releases I’ve heard in recent months, is a set of nine solo pieces, six for bass clarinet, three for soprano saxophone, all processed via computer. As a general rule, Saladin arranges strings of overlapping loops, quiet and sometimes subtle enough that their iterative nature isn’t immediately apparent, and laces them with several layers of non-repetitive samplings, in some of which can be heard traces of their reed origins, most not. That first track (the cuts are titled with numbers; this one is “14”) is ingratiating from the get go, the loop having an insistent, almost pleading quality that provides downstream propulsion while at the same time imparting a sense of accepting calmness. Calmness, in fact, is one of the strongest impressions you get throughout the disc, that and a lucid perceptiveness as though Saladin is holding the results of his improvisation between his fingertips, turning them in the light and deeply examining their multitudinous facets. When listened to carefully there always seems to be at least five or six separate events occurring at a given moment, though they’re arrayed in space so artfully that the last thing one thinks of is overcrowding. The loops tend toward the tonal and, in fact, often have something of the quality of a soft electric piano. This could, I imagine, put off listeners concerned with any edging toward perceived “ambient” music, though I found it worked beautifully in opposition to the static pops, extremely high-pitched buzzes, liquid gurgles and other assorted effluvia.
Saladin is remarkably consistent in his ability to match disparate sounds, managing to incorporate them into a convincing sound-space while allowing their very different identities to come through clearly. In that respect, some of the tracks can almost be heard as exceptionally fascinating field recordings. Others, like the raspy and rhythmic “36”, have a more overtly composed feeling and perhaps are a little less successful for that. But really, there’s not a weak track to be found here and the best (to these ears, “04” and “17”) are as satisfying as anything I’ve heard in a while. “Intervalles” is a seriously enjoyable disc and has me looking forward to hearing much more from Saladin.
Posted by Brian Olewnick on February 11, 2007 9:55 AMSo you never heard his album with Rives & Boghossian on 1.8secs, Brian? Well worth a flutter.
http://www.paristransatlantic.com/magazine/monthly2006/06jun_text.html#8
Dear Brian, (
(1.8)sec.records sent you a copy of Plateformes cd !?
As i sent you Müller & Steinbrüchel cd (released on my label List, 2 years ago, without any review !?
Best Regards
Hervé
Herve,
I do indeed have the Muller/Steinbruchel disc. I don't recall why I never wrote it up except that perhaps it fell into the category I mentioned elsewhere recently of consisting of music about which I just couldn't think of anything to say and I was swamped with others. Apologies.
I never received the (1.8) sec disc, I'm pretty certain. Unfortunately, as it sounds like something up my alley.
Brian,
Please see with Chris Bryan chrisbryan78@gmail.com of the label about Plateformes cd .
But i'm pretty sure that i gave the same adress that Dan (Warburton) gave me for the Muller & Steinbrüchel to him to send promo, he told me that he did ans i trust him, so it must have been lost or stolen .
best
h
I've just received 'Intervalles' yesterday.
After two listenings, I would say it's excellent !
Recommended,
That Müller & Steinbrüchel disc is perhaps one of Steinbrüchel's best moments on disc...other than the "Expedition_2" that Everest records released a few months back. Highly recommended!
Brian - you should go back and have another listen.
Tom, I put that on for a spin tonight but I have to say, it doesn't do so much for me. Not bad by any means, but it doesn't stand out from several things Gunter issued in the last couple of years that, for my taste, are a bit too fuzzy. I think he's done some subtly different things on his recent Cut disc and, to an extent, the one on Esquilo from last year, but this one...well, put it this way: I get the feeling he can turn these out with one hand (or ear) tied behind his back. He's great at what he does, yes, but I just want to hear more grit and heft.
Plus, of course, there's my life long prejudice against people who go by a single name......
Posted by: Brian Olewnick at March 5, 2007 4:31 PMBrian - so if I shorten my name to Salty, you'll hold a grudge against me?
I still feel Muller's duo disc with Steinbruchel still makes for some great, challenging music...
Haven't heard it for a while, but I recall enjoying it quite a bit. Then again, Brian's comments above illustrate a point I tried to make elsewhere (most recently in the review of the n:q disc) - what are the criteria for judging EAI albums? One man's masterpiece is someone else's bore.
Posted by: Dan Warburton at March 5, 2007 10:36 PMwhat are the criteria for judging EAI albums?
1. Quotient of suberbity according to bagatellen/I hate music contributors (1-5). 2. Pre-release hype (1-5) 3. How many dedicatees have died within the last two months? (actual number) 4. Does Horn like it? (y=-1, n=1). 5. Is there a clearly detectable anti-capitalist stance expressed either in liners, in accompanying material, or in recorded material that is audible during the work (y=3, n=0).
Add results. Answer bigger than 11, you're in business.
Posted by: walto at March 6, 2007 4:20 AMwhat are the criteria for judging EAI albums?
What are the criteria for judging abstract painting?
Posted by: Richard Pinnell at March 6, 2007 5:26 AMCmon Richard don't duck the question - you know as well as I do that you like certain albums of this kind of music much more than others, and I daresay you'd be able to say why. But to return to an old favourite example, how is it that seasoned EAI heads can disagree so wildly on the merits of particular albums? I recall my differences of opinion with Jacques Oger over the Plateformes album (and many others, come to think of it), and my own fondness for Absinth (Grob), which Jon Abbey doesn't care for much. (That's sort of putting myself up as an "EAI head" myself, which I don't think I am - you cats listen to much more of this stuff than I do, but never mind..)
To pursue your abstract painting analogy, I have to admit that I really don't get off much on the work of, say, Cy Twombly, but at the same time I can appreciate its quality both conceptually and for what it is. Anyway, something to discuss perhaps..
Walt - don't forget funky packaging.
The more original these are, the more points they're bound to score.
Dan, I wasn't so much ducking the question as showing how hard it is to answer.
One reason is (as I see it), as music (or art) become more abstract then so the reasons people enjoy it become more abstract and harder to identify. In general, there is usually some consensus as to how well a heavy metal track "rocks" or a jazz record "swings", because these concepts are relatively tangible, easier to get your head around. This just isn't possible with "EAI".
Another key reason that "EAI" is hard to talk about in similar terms is because it is not a definable genre in the first place. It does not contain any one element that can be found across all of the music lumped under its umbrella. So the reasons I like a Taku Sugimoto guitar composition are completely different to the reasons I like a Will Guthrie solo "percussion" improvisation for instance.
The two pieces of music actually have very little in common either sonically, structurally or theoretically so my appreciation for each will be based on completely different criteria.
Following the abstract painting analogy I like both Ben Nicholson and Mark Rothko's painting, for very different reasons yet they would both be lumped together in one wing of your average art gallery.
So, essentially until someone manages to identify some criteria that makes a piece of music "EAI" in the first place (as opposed to just plonking the label on anyone that ever played in the same room as Keith Rowe!)then it will be very difficult to describe on anything other than an individual basis why one piece of music could be considered good and another less so.
Posted by: Richard Pinnell at March 6, 2007 9:19 AMWalt - don't forget funky packaging.
The more original these are, the more points they're bound to score.
Good point, Tom. If the packaging is either larger than 14" by 14" or smaller than your thumb print add 2 points, if not, subtract 1 point. Having no legible writing (or clear writing in no known language) on either the disc, LP, EP or 45, is probably worth a point as well. With these grid improvements, we'd better change the total needed to have a clear winner 13.
(Note to Jon Abbey: that Ersts fit nicely in people's CD racks is costing your releases quality points! Couldn't you package them in old tires or stale bagels or something?)
Posted by: walto at March 6, 2007 12:23 PMYou guys are a riot, I tell ya.
Dan :"I recall my differences of opinion with Jacques Oger over the Plateformes album"
My opinion was mainly about the sound of the recording itself.
I think it could have been better. But this group seems hard to record in satisfying conditions and correctly amplify during gigs.
RP: "So, essentially until someone manages to identify some criteria that makes a piece of music "EAI" in the first place.."
Aww shite not that one again.. We've been round this block before (see several articles of mine including one called 'What is EAI' here). Let's work on the assumption that we know what is and isn't EAI, and drop the inverted commas. I've been pushing hard in my articles to get EAI accepted as a bona fide sub-genre; let's not start boxing it up again with quotation marks.
JO: "I recall my differences of opinion with Jacques Oger over the Plateformes album"
My opinion was mainly about the sound of the recording itself.
Not as I recall; you felt that Rives didn't contribute very much, as opposed to the recording not showcasing his playing adequately.
Anyway, talking of stake bagels, have to dash to catch a train. Back in three days - have fun y'all
Dan "you felt that Rives didn't contribute very much, as opposed to the recording not showcasing his playing adequately."
yes it's true. IMHO
"what are the criteria for judging EAI albums?"
We can only hope that Sankt Olewnick will eventually reveal some details of his rating guide.
Posted by: uli at March 6, 2007 11:44 PM"what are the criteria for judging EAI albums?"
We can only hope that Sankt Olewnick will eventually reveal some details of his rating guide.
Posted by: uli at March 6, 2007 11:46 PMhere may be a slight help;
we could abandon "eai" acronym once and for all (by now, it's really shallow) and start using something more appropriate, "contemporary improvisation" sounds much more acceptable and accurate.
what could encompass all the spectrum from relatively silent contemporary improv to the louder part is conscious effort at next features:
1) the dissolution of musical gesture, phrases, lines to their most reduced component elements (disjunct, layered sonorities)
2) an emphasis on "continuous" sound, often punctuated with tiny gestures or fluctuations, interruptions (including punctuation by silence)
3) a consequent reduction of any sense of musical linearity (narrative time, as you'd get in Beethoven, Coltrane, Taylor)
4) little (maybe necessarily little) interest shown in formal organisation, even spontaneously (except where pre- or post-production gets involved, as it does increasingly); the reduction of formal features, i.e. melody, harmony, tonal/pitch hierarchies, etc. (this applies to all improv, really... but even moreso to it now.)
5) maybe an even more dramatic turn away from a self-consciously "modernist" classical sound, i.e. the pointillism of Webern..
6) Reduced sense of a conversational, responsive attitude between the players.
7) in some cases an almost punk-y/untrained attitude to DIY playing—less instrumental virtuosity than say, Parker or Bailey.
8) greater interest in "novelty sounds" and techniques, maybe, and these often not integrated into the work as whole, but employed for their own sake.
as the most radical feature of contemporary improv
(if I had to single out such a thing), I'd point to the item 3, and the notion of "non-linearity" and complete evasion of "narrative time", a area which previous era in improvised music rarely challenged fully, though I'm not saying there weren't no competent challenges.
that's what creates such large issues many people have with this music, in my opinion.
also, many people equate contemporary improv with low level dynamics and levels of activity, but here are good lines from Lucio Capece's blog:
"...Lucio Capece does not feel himself identified with an specific school. He plays mainly in improvised music projects that go from extreme reductionism to noise, not considering the amount of sound or silence as a main thing - but the time experience and the perception experience as main subjects."
exactly these "time experience and the perception experience" are focal points of contemporary improv, together with the fact that it is rightful
heir of the heritage that improvised music (and contemporary music in general) left behind itself,
but what stopped to be critically tackled and resulted with complete bakrupt by the '90s, with Peter Brotzmann sadly stating: "I don’t know why that is, but it is very simple, I have yet to find any German musicians that I want to work with. I think, at the moment, it seems to be a lot of younger guys and girls, they go to the
electronics. I think that is quite in fashion at the moment. I don’t know how long that will go on, but one thing I have to say about the German situation is that I miss young people, young players coming out in Germany."
obvious loss of touch with the changed surroundings and stubborn refusal of change, which means sure death for an improvising musician.
on the "judging criteria" issue, more later, perhaps...
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