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 Review archive:  # a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z

@C - Music for Empty Spaces [Baskaru - 2010]

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@c immediately caught my attention with the picturesque row of palm trees on the cover of their latest album, "Music for Empty Spaces".  Listening to the album, I find it's as masterful a piece of 'new music' as ever I've heard.  I would describe their style as lush musique concret intertwined with restrained, minimalist instrumental playing that speaks to the intense silence and monotony of solitude.  The sound sources are widely different from track to track, broadening the scope of the overall album.

In "76.1", a restless, granulated breeze blows across a stereo microphone as a distant gaseous hiss is punctuated by deep, muffled thunder.  Around 3 minutes, a subway train is heard arriving at the station, and wet rustling pans sharply around the soundspace.  This is among the quietest and least outwardly emotional pieces of the record.  The final couple minutes are occupied mostly by the thunder, and clicks and pops that could be rain on the top of a tent.

With a sharp vinyl scratching sound alongside a yearning, open-ended piano chord, "76.2" enters.  The crackling and rustling sounds found in the first couple minutes are a clever mixture of vinyl noise, quietly burning flames and objects being moved across the grill of the microphone.

A warm, strident series of piano chords enters with slow tempo and huge presence, coccooned in a massive reverb.  This single progression contains a thousand intense and possibly contradictory emotions, most notably inner peace and meditative contentment, but also yearning, timidity and loneliness depending on the listener's mood.  It becomes all the more heartwrenching with the entrance of a recording of joyful and pure birdsong.

Right as the patient chord progression draws to a close, "76.3" kicks in.  This piece is an opus unto itself at 16 minutes, and full of such rich and odd sounds that it is quite difficult to describe.  Rattling snare drum rolls, and airy, toneless ghost notes from a jittery saxophone are digitally obliterated, and field recordings are churned into a retriggered blur.  Deep, warmly distorted bass tones sound out periodically that should demonstrate the capabilities of any decent stereo.  The final minutes are a backwards solo for digitally harmonized organ to a backdrop of whistling, unnaturally even wind and air sounds.  By this time, it's evident how marvellously this group has balanced the worlds of natural and digital sound, processing their source recordings just enough to create complex abstract structures without obscuring their essences.

"76.4" grabs the listeners attention with an eerie vocal, a chromatic descending melody sung in falsetto, on the syllable "Ooh".  The piano returns, but draws less attention to itself as a thick blanket of air sounds builds volume over the course of the song.  In addition, heavily phased snippets of what sounds like electric piano occasionally ring out, all tonality sucked out by the thick processing.  "One, two, three, four..."  The track ends with a rhythmic count off, and segues beautifully into "76.5", a brief, naked reprise of the fragile melody from the second track.

There are two more tracks and many more minutes of music, but I won't describe them here.  There is too much wonderful sound on "Music for Empty Spces" to convey fully in words, afterall.  Suffice to say there are some wonderful bits with the sounds of bumblebees.

@c has shattered the idea that musique concret and new music need be academic or devoid of sentiment.  The rich, honest music they have created here is serenely beautiful, yet without a single dull moment.  It is endlessly fascinating for its complexity of texture.  At this moment, this is likely my favorite album of both the new music and field recording genres

Rating: 5 out of 5Rating: 5 out of 5Rating: 5 out of 5Rating: 5 out of 5Rating: 5 out of 5

Josh Landry
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