Henrik Munkeby Nørstebø: Faint Light Blackens [Psychic Liberation]. Less of a performance and more of a piece from Nørstebø this time, compared to his 2023 release Dystopian Dancing. Paradoxically, this work in seven acts was “produced in a long form performance gesture, with no overdubs” or post-production (recoding dates are given as 10 and 11 October, so maybe it was an allnighter). Nørstebø’s instrument is the trombone, which he seems to use as a means to produce sound as much as he uses it as a brush to deploy those sounds where needed. The thirty-five minute piece maintains its coherence by brooding, essentially; the sounds are remote and fittingly sepulchral throughout. While focusing on shape and texture, maintained through a palette of intaglio greys, there are just enough inflections of colour and flashes of repressed activity (trombone is a recondite medium for noise music) to elevate the whole thing above po-faced complacency.
Jashiin: Overflow [mainly slow organ music]. Like it says on the label, Huw Morgan is the master of mainly slow organ music, as heard in his many recitals, mostly in the west of England. Jashiin is a composer based in Istanbul; he describes Overflow as “a moment of charged calm, held for as long as I could manage to hold it”. So, long stretches of suspended chords transitioning from one to another and all the acoustic and psychoacoustic effects this can evoke, if done right. Morgan does it right, of course. Jashiin leaves matters of registration and dynamics largely up to the performer, so Morgan presents three interpretations of the piece: the first rich and full, with range and depth, the second all reeds and strings, creating clashing harmonics and beating overtones, the third soft and disembodied, floating in darkness.
Leave a Reply