Alice Hui-Sheng Chang / Jason
Kahn
Voices
USA Pan y Rosas
Discos pyr172 download
(2016)
Four pieces on offer here; numbered simply 1 to 4
recorded in Melbourne, Australia in January of 2015. A departure of sorts for Jason Kahn, who has
previously been heard improvising at the controls of shortwave radios and
analogue synthesisers, [see his recent cassette Thirty Seconds Over on Aural Detritus], or on percussion. Alice Hui-Sheng Chang is a new name to me. Alice has
this to say about her work: “…(she)
challenges the boundary of a presentation site physically and imaginatively,
viewing each performance as a site-specific response…”. Her music has been released on Antifrost,
Trente Oiseaux, Homophoni, New Weird Australia, Kwan Yin and Sub Rosa among
others.
In terms of its basic construction, Voices runs the gamut of vocalese.
The material here reminds me somehow of the way birds communicate. The internet tells me: "Songbirds learn their songs and perform them
using a specialized voice box called a ”syrinx”. For
a bird, singing can be draining. It is both energetically expensive and alerts
predators. So then why do birds sing? Evidence suggests that in part, it is to
proclaim and defend their territories.
The chances are when you hear a bird singing it’s a male. The majority
of female songbirds in temperate zones use shorter, simpler calls while
the males produce the longer and more complex vocalizations we think of as song. The story is different in the tropics where
females commonly sing, and many species engage in duetting." In Chang and Kahn’s case, their duetting is strangely comforting and
their voices respective timbres complement each other well.
On 1 both Kahn
and Chang creak and hum; wheeze and whisper.
Initially, Kahn seems to use an intimate close microphone technique at
times, whereas it sounds as if Alice Hui-Sheng Chang’s approach is more full
bodied and interacts with the recording space.
However my perception of this changes as the piece progresses. There is a granular quality to both voices
and it is impossible for me to tell who’s doing what. By the last couple of minutes Kahn is clearly
making noises which remind me of Dylan Nyoukis’ saliva-filled mouth/throat-noise
explorations but without the tape manipulation typical of Nyoukis’ live vocal
performances.
The second piece is
more structured (academic) to my ears, although due to the brevity of
information I have been given with this album, this assumption may be erroneous,
or even irrelevant. I suspect that there
are incidents of double-tracking of Kahn’s vocals on this piece but again don’t
take my word for it. The duo employ
space as more of a feature in 2,
which results in the feeling of slower pace overall.
The third piece begins
with whistling and very electronic-sounding close-up mouth noises before
developing the first full-throated display of what you might traditionally
recognise as “singing” on the album.
This is the shortest piece on Voices
and something of a lull before the maelstrom of 4.
Track four is possibly
the most confrontational featuring as it does Alice’s joyless cackle and Jason’s
wet ululations from the very start. Weird
high pitched whistling like the noises coaxed from a slowly deflating balloon
follow; pops, multitimbral exhalations, the distant overheard mumblings of a
confused great-uncle, osculations, wavering, lip-smacking and so forth, but now
with a restraint and sense of calm that you just don’t get from practitioners
like Phil Minton. Until Alice starts
screaming like a hungry goat, that is.
Jason Kahn appears to
be working exclusively with his voice at the time of writing, so it will be
interesting to hear his development of this way of working over future
recordings. Interest in an older
generation of vocalising artists like Bob Cobbing and Henri Chopin is on the
increase and the aforementioned, (and previously seriously underground artist),
Dylan Nyoukis was recently subjected to a sympathetic piece in The Guardian, [https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2016/mar/15/dylan-nyoukis-interview]
so perhaps Kahn’s timing of this album is spot on.
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