There’s a new batch of five recordings on Kory Reeder’s Sawyer Editions imprint, this time including one by Reeder himself. I’ve only heard one other piece by Reeder, the 70-minute Codex Vivere on Another Timbre, which I recall mildly disparaging in a passing comment as “polite”. Something like that, anyway; I remember feeling that it was at pains to be too accommodating to the listener. Snow, composed last year for a quartet of violin, cello, piano and percussion, is a different matter. Using the same basic approach but in a more pointed fashion, Snow makes a virtue of its reticence by lulling the listener with simple, repeated patterns threaded through other ephemeral material, but always pulling them away before they can establish themselves clearly. Those patterns, with the familiar hushed dynamics, inevitably recall late Feldman, but the repeating figures are too simple to be invested with any greater significance and, if Reeder is consciously referring to Feldman then he draws upon those moments when a passage is about to exhaust itself. In pacing and phrasing, the music is constantly about to fade into silence and stasis, turning something simple into a much deeper and elusive experience. Reeder himself leads the small ensemble on piano, with all four speaking as low and distant as they possibly can. It’s also been released on cassette, yet even as a download the piece falls into two parts exactly fifteen minutes long.
Matt Sargent’s Illuminations is a set of three gentle electroacoustic works which could almost be considered ambient were it not for the subtle manipulations beneath the surface. Taken from a longer cycle of works titled Illuminations, the three pieces are made from electronic, algorithmic processes built around live musicians. Sargent’s scores are animated, with notes fading in and out over each other, creating slow loops for the performer to play, using opacity as a guide to dynamics. In turn, their notes are sifted out by a software patch that selects certain tones to be extended and harmonised. The independent routines work together to create something that sounds alive and spontaneous, even as it maintains an overall undisturbed consistency. Slow, erratic melodies unfold against a backdrop of refreshing harmonics. It reminded me a bit of some of David Behrman’s recent interactive electroacoustic works, using novel ideas without needing to show them off. The bright timbres of the instruments used here offset the softness of the playing: the first track a duet for pianist Michael Jones on vibraphone and Shaoai Ashley Zhang on piano, the following two solos for Trevor Saint on glockenspiel and Taylor Long on vibraphone. All play with a critical senstivity to touch.
By way of contrast, the two pieces Noah Jenkins has made with trombonist Riley Leitch present yet another way of listening. Without Persistent Environments is up-front loud and proud, immersing you in the sound rather than coaxing you in. For the first twenty minutes Leitch rings the changes on a small gamut of pitches in Without persistent environments the sense of confusion and flux might only worsen, multitracked so that the notes clash and coincide with unpredictable regularity. Jenkins recorded Leitch in various locations around Chicago, adding acoustic and ambient colouration that is at first imperceptible but soon becomes a complicating force. For the following hour, Leith plays long tones in just intonation into a live looping system for Rotations Placement : Providence Everywhere, creating an implacable, complex drone of dense chords and overtones. The pitches and the brass combine to make something wonderfully agressive, that snarls and buzzes like a La Monte Young piece. It’s best played loud, in the manner of the late, lamented Phill Niblock. My only complaint is that it fades out at the end instead of dumping you cold.
