Back from a break, but before I left I was able to hear Magnus Granberg and an expanded version of the group Skogen play Trouble, Had It All My Days in London. Thirteen musicians, with locals and Toshimaru Nakamura on his no-input mixing board adding to the colour and texture. After just going through some of his other recent compositions it was a pleasure to hear this work live, there being no recording available yet. Apart from the innate theatre of experiencing the music live, the piece showed another subtlety to Granberg’s approach, using his source (alluded to in the title) both as material largely untraceable for the unprompted listener and as inspiration for the direction the composition will take over its lengthy course. There is notated music, but it’s pooled as a resource for improvisation and repetition as directed; despite this apparent freedom in details, the piece is shaped to head from activity to quiescence. Sustained, simple textures predominated as the piece progressed, with fewer changes or overt disruptions from Granberg’s usual resources of ambient electronics and percussive small objects. (Nakamura’s feedback sounds were occasionally a distraction, but these appeared to be down to getting the balance right on his finicky electronic setup.)
Pacha Wakay Munan: El tiempo quiere cantar [Buh]. I need to talk about two of the most downright weird albums that came in last year. El tiempo quiere cantar is on the Peruvian Buh label, credited to Pacha Wakay Munan – a duo of musicians “and researchers” Dimitri Manga Chávez and Ricardo López Alcas. The sleeve notes somewhat modestly describe it as a “showcase” of the sonic possibilities of pre-Hispanic South American instruments in a contemporary musical context. Listening to it sounds like so much more than a demonstration; the strangeness is multiplied by the absence of a convenient musicological or anthropological basis to rationalise what you’re hearing. You’re already thinking of pan pipes, rattles and drums, but this collection of eight pieces will periodically reinforce your preceonceptions only to confound them. As described in the notes, the instruments survive but their method of use has largely been lost, leaving any existing tradition a piecemeal assembly of repurposed practices. This gives our two musicians the freedom to invent a new context, which when heard as an album appears to be created on the fly, drawing in references to older ethnographic recordings, adding occasional European instruments and modern electronics. It becomes impossible to hear this music for what it is, as our heads are already filled with pre-existing interpretations of what it should or should not be, thus rendering even the familiar at odds with our expectations. It’s worse if you’re better educated to prioritise the “authenticity” of ethnic experience, as your aesthetic values become more prescriptive and constricted. The music shares Kagel’s understanding of slippery, subjective relativism which more dogmatic musicians attempt to deny. As with Kagel, it’s hard not to think there’s some conceptual programme at work behind the album when hoarse, distant whistles are succeeded by a slightly sentimental piano accompaniment to a siku melody, before suddenly giving way to a chugging vamp overlaid with braying ceramic trumpets. You can tie yourself in knots trying to intellectually justify it all on the musicians’ behalf, or just let it happen to you and marvel at the sonic variety.
Jason Doell & Naomi McCarroll-Butler: FOUR FORMER MYRRH FORMERS FORMED HER HORN FOR MURMURS [Watch That Ends The Night]. The hell? Bunch of gamelan-cum-windchime sounds that appear to be played by a machine, Fifties musique concrète noises with a zither, fidgety electronic noodling with insouciant clarinet fripperies? Waat is this all supposed to add up to? It isn’t, and I’m not hearing it right; I’ll spare myself some embarrassment and say the misdirection is part of the point. McCarroll-Butler is the (very) human musician, and Doell (I should have known) has wrong-footed me again with his algorithmic programming. All three (computer code included) are jointly credited with composition. The sleeve notes offer “improvisations sampled and algorithmically composed” and that’s it. No wonder each of the four pieces here remain uncrackable nuts of inscrutability, but what particularly bamboozles the listener is how the choice of instruments, manner of initial playing and computational reorganisation defy the usual impassive mood that prevails when hearing non-human (or sufficiently alien) cultural artefacts: there always appears to be something at stake. To drive this point home, the final, long track glides effortlessly on a buzzing, chiming drone that could seemingly go forever, until a saxophone creeps in until it’s front of stage and joined by a drum kit in an ambivalent homage to Yoko and John’s Cambridge 1969.
Harry Partch: The Wayward [Bridge]. A welcome piece of vintage weirdness is the latest instalment of Bridge’s series of fresh interpretations of Harry Partch, beautifully recorded and played by the Partch Ensemble. The Wayward is a sequence of five compositions Partch identifies as a suite, which until now hasn’t been collected into a complete recording it says here. Partch’s time as a hobo in depression-era America is the subject matter here, so his signature earthiness is at the forefront. That earthiness can make one want to prefer the gentle crustiness of his own recordings from the Fifties and Sixties, but the world owes him these crystal-clear renditions on lovingly recreated instruments to renew his legacy in the next century. That said, what immediately struck me is how damn well Partch’s original ensemble played his weird-ass music at the time; these new recordings won’t make you re-evaluate anything, but they will give you greater appreciation of Partch’s compositions as living music more than historical arefact. There’s still plenty of history here: Partch is one of the great exponents of that explosion of vitality in American English in the mid-20th century. The exotic instruments and tunings all serve to provide thrilling music more than exemplify a theory – one advantage of these new recordings is that the instruments don’t fade into the background. The Partch Ensemble’s musicianship and recitations are spot-on, capturing the zeitgeist of the language as well as can be expected without lapsing into pastiche. Veteran just-intonation guitarist John Schneider is the main narrator and his voice has gained a rasp with age that bears an uncanny similarity to Partch’s own. This take of U.S. Highball is a keeper, and if Barstow runs the risk of being overfamiliar in your household then the unbridled vocabulary used here will still make you perk up. The new item with this release is the alternative versions of Ulysses at the Edge, one with added improvisation on trumpet and baritone sax from when Partch envisioned the piece as a vehicle for Chet Baker.
