blasen is an album on the Another Timbre label (same label that curated the Unnamed Music Festival I attended a month or two ago), featuring Sebastian Lexer on piano+ and Seymour Wright on alto saxophone.I saw Seymour Wright live (performing with Martin Kuchen and Keith Rowe) at the Unnamed Music Festival a short while ago and was so completely enthralled by what he was doing (I had a clear line of sight) that I often found myself unfortunately distracted from the music at large. I have benefited from the experience, however, as listening to this record I do find that I can make a pretty good guess on occassion at how certain sounds are created... although that is still no more than 50% of the time. It also doesn't help that on the second of the two tracks on this album it is predominantly Wright's saxophone that is being manipulated by Lexer's electronics.
Sebastian Lexer's piano+ set up is an incredibly inspirational collaboration between acoustic piano and electronics. The electronically sustained harmonics/drones/crunching/crackling/booming creates a whole new soundworld from an instrument whose traditional soundworld is often difficult to break out of (also been listening to a lot of Xenakis recently... and his writing for piano in terms of techniques/sounds is fairly conventional compared to his writing for nearly all other instruments/ensembles).
The first improvisation on the cd, "blasen_37:18", is a very organically paced, brooding piece of music. Despite its beautiful sense of emotional structure, however, it is incredibly varied. The whole range of the piano is used, from growling low end rumbles and muted notes to electronically sustained, high pitched harmonics, to beautifully warm, mid-range chords that punctuate the music around the 26:45 mark. I do feel that this is also, perhaps, the reason why such a natural pacing of the improvisation was possible. In opening up the full range of the piano both acoustically and through electronic manipulation, Sebastian Lexer very early on opens up a deeply resonant space within which both he and Seymour Wright can then explore.
The second improvisaton on the cd, "blasen_25:34" (in which Wright's saxophone is predominantly affected by the electronics, not Lexer's piano), strikes me as being slightly more episodic initially. This time the space created, within which Wright and Lexer place their sounds and improvise, is at first achieved through intermittent use of some sort of drone or looped sound. For instance, within the first 4 or so minutes, gong-like harmonics and scrapes from Lexer (reminiscent of Takemitsu's Corona) and electronically processed/extended harmonics from Seymour Wright are dropped onto a predominantly 'blank canvas'. Then, at 4:20 a quiet (sub?)tone from Seymour Wright is (I assume) looped by Lexer's electronics to create a drone, over which Lexer's inside-piano work and I think further high pitched harmonics from Wright's saxophone are layered, while rattles that could come from either of the two musicians bubble underneath the drone. This drone disappears by around 6:40, leaving Lexer and Wright's sounds surrounded by digital silence. The drone returns again around the 12:30 mark, and has disappeared again by the 14 minute mark.
This second improvisation also has a delightfully strange "coda". The last couple of minutes contain strange high pitched electronic blips and whistling, reminiscent (at least for me) of the pianissimo glissandi at the end of Kottos and Embellie, Iannis Xenakis' pieces for solo cello and viola respectively.
And so coming back to the reasons for these thoughts... thinking about what constitutes engaging music from both the perspective of creating the music and listening to the music. The idea of structure and pacing, what those terms mean, and how they can work when executed well. blasen provides two examples of fascinating and excellently executed structure/pacing in an improvised setting. Each piece fluid, exploratory, and challenging yet cohesive and controlled. It is also interesting to consider the role each element of the duet plays in creating this music, and the role of electronic manipulation with regards to the methods used in opening up spaces to be explore by Lexer and Wright.
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Other listening of late has included a fair amount of John Cage, including the Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano, the Freeman Etudes, and the mode recording of Empty Words with Music for Piano featuring Cage himself on voice. I've really taken to Cage's music over the past few months and will writing some more in depth thoughts, especially on the latter recording, soon. Thelonious Monk's Underground has been played a few times, as has Burkhard Schlothauer's ChamberEvents, one of three wandelweiser discs I've recently acquired.
One disc that I've been meaning to write about for a long time but now feel the time for a proper 'review' of sorts has passed, is a cd entitled Four Generations, that features solo piano music from four 20th century composers performed by Daniel Seel. The first two pieces' composers and the last two pieces' composers share a teacher-student relationship. First, Stefan Wolpe's Battle Pieces, second Morton Feldman's Palais De Mari, third Walter Zimmermann's Wüstenwanderung, and finally the pianist Daniel Seel's Nacht-stücke. All 4 compositions are wonderful, of course, but what drew me into this cd for at least a month was the programming. It provides a highly enjoyable listening experience, from Wolpe's dense and motific pieces, to Feldman's final, and shockingly concise, solo piano piece (I think?), Zimmermann's strange octave leaps, and finally Seel's fragile and delicate work that employs all manner of extended techniques to create a delicate and surreal ambience as the cd comes to an end. Highly recommended, and quite possibly on sale at the moment as a part of jazzloft.com's summer hathut sale.
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