Sandy Ewen & Chase
Gardiner
Transfusion
USA Marginal
Frequency MFCD B CD
(2018)
An interesting pairing here, from the consistently
excellent Marginal Frequency imprint run by Laminal Audio’s A. F. Jones out of Kitsap
County, Washington USA. Sandy Ewen is
described as “an experimental guitarist, artist and architect” whose playing is “centred around found objects and extended
guitar techniques”, while Chase Gardner “is an artist with a focus on
exploring the abstract elements of art in order to express his personality and
ideas”. The music they present here is
extremely well-presented as you would expect from a Marginal Frequency release
and has a close-up, surgical focus I particularly enjoy in material derived
from prepared instruments. These are very
brutish - in a good way - and upfront guitar extrapolations featuring lots of
interesting techniques not least of which is a process Gardiner describes as
“divided pickup”. Are we to assume a
physically divided guitar pickup?
Divided how, I wonder? Physically
by splitting the output of said pickup or by making two movable pickups or
theoretically - by way of separate EQ-ing, perhaps? Intriguing, but no further explanation. Perhaps none is needed.
Interestingly, Ewen spent much of 2017 performing solo
sets and in collaboration with Steve Jansen (tapes and electronics) and Maria
Chavez (turntables) around Europe – Chavez is performing in the UK in the early
part of 2019 I believe – while in 2018, she performed at the Sant'anna Arresi
Jazz Festival, Experimental Sound Studio Option Series and the High Zero
Festival. There is also evidence of a
performance with Keith Rowe and Damon Smith from 2012 on YouTube. Gardner is involved in a variety of different
projects such as his experimental music duo with Adriana Valls, Cut Shutters
and appears to be involved in various North Texas-based improvised music
ensembles.
Transfusion is
a compelling document of these two artists’ current practice. Certainly the sounds they have developed for
this album are very curious; there is an emphasis on a percussive approach as
well as the generation of unusual timbres, particularly on “Molded”, for
example. There is a sense of urgency as
well, which I like; the pace is set pretty quick from the outset but despite
this, there are no lulls in the performances, no surfacing for air. They take their feet off the gas briefly
during “Sync” but even then, they demonstrate an intensity of action with even
the slightest movements and adjustments.
Mastered by the afore-mentioned A.F. Jones at Laminal Audio.
Howard Stelzer
Across the Blazer
USA Marginal
Frequency MFCD C CD
(2018)
Howard Stelzer is an artist whose palette is almost
entirely made up of domestic tape machines. The way he employs those devices, for me, give
an overall effect that is rather like the sound your ears make when you are
underwater. In other words, you are
still hearing the world around you, going about its business as usual,
coexisting blithely as it always does, but with a big, dense filter getting in
between, clouding your perceptions. It’s
a comforting filter, almost imperceptible, momentarily cloaking and protecting
you from your surroundings; hiding your existence in time and place, but with
the unspoken threat of unintentional harm; the element of surprise – forget not
to breath and you’ll be thrust back into the open in a violent and sudden
explosion of panic…
You may also be familiar with the label Intransitive
which Stelzer ran from 1997 through to 2012.
The Intransitive back catalogue features many big names in the
“experimental” arena; Roel Meelkop, Richard Chartier, Jim Haynes, C. Spencer
Yeh, Kapotte Musiek, and many others.
Stelzer himself has worked with Vic Rawlings, Jason Talbot, Frans de
Waard, John Hegre, Jazzkammer and David Payne. Stelzer’s pivotal solo release seems to be
2008’s Bond Inlets, which Stelzer
himself refers to as “my first artistically successful proper album after
numerous false starts.”
Here, the first piece, “Selective Memory (You Never Know
Absolutely Quite Where You Are)” presents a broad range of tape detritus from channel-tuning
television static to a distant thunderstorm heard through earplugs. Relax, as all our changes are smoothly
transitioning. It could be that we are
hearing sounds of tape itself, or the mechanisms of various machines, or sound
recorded onto tape in certain and multifarious lo-fi ways. Either way, a good way to unwind at the end
of a stressful day.
The second of the two pieces is “Across the Blazer”. What is this “blazer” I wonder? Possibly complex distilled strings with a
classic crescendo model in terms of dynamic, additive composition. I found it less obviously relaxing than
“Selective Memory…”; its dynamic alone ramps up the anxiety, even before the
amplified distorted driven-into-the-red bell chimes make an appearance but composed
as it is from the sharpened essence of brittle shards of orchestral strings,
the overall sonic effect is harrowing.
My new favourite bedtime listening.
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