CLAIRE M. SINGER – GLEANN CIÙIN
Glean Ciùin is the second part in a trilogy that started in November 2023 with Saor. Using pipe organs, cello, and electronics, Claire M. Singer paints sonic pictures of the vast landscapes and weathered peaks of the Cairngorms national park in Aberdeenshire (Scotland).
In doing so, she also explores “the rich, resonant tones of pipe organs, contemplating the weight of history and the timeless beauty of these majestic instruments”.
The Cairgorms landscapes clearly invoke a deep sense of timelessness which is reflected in the drones on this album. Especially in the longer – 19-minute – opening and closing tracks.
‘Drones’ may however be a too restrictive description. In Turadh, for example, a beautiful melody emerges around halfway into the track – a well-balanced interplay between the organ and the cello. Rionnag A Tuath unfolds into a melancholic anthem-like melody.
Two of the shorter tracks refer to an exact geographic location that can be found on the map. The tracks with titles do not point to locations but more to an atmosphere: Gleann Ciùin (‘quiet glenn’), Rionnag A Tuath (‘Northern Star’), and Turadh (‘To Turn’).
Saor and Gleann Ciùin are a perfect match already. Let’s hope that the third and final part of this trilogy does not take another two years to wait!
Gleann Ciùin is released on the Touch label and is available on CD (in DVD format package) and as a digital download.
MATTIE BARBIER – IS THIS THE LAND I WISH DEATH TO FIND ME
Discreet Archive is not only a label for music “that allows for space, presents sonority as object and is concerned with the materiality of sound, sound as thing”. They also create microphones and instruments especially “designed for use in experimental music, sound art and field recordings”.
Mattie Barbier‘s Is This The Land I Wish Death To Fine Me demonstrates what that combination can lead to.
Especially in the title track recorded at the Tank Center for Sonic Arts in Rangely, Colorado. Mattie‘s trombone, playing “a slowly shifting set of ascending just minor thirds: 6:5,7:6, and 13:11”, is not recorded in the usual way, but with magnetic geophones (a device to pick up reverberated seismic waves) attached to the tank’s exterior steel surface. Only a few interior microphones were added. In this way, the resonance of the tank itself becomes a part of the sonic material. The result is a piece with a close connection to the legendary Deep Listening sessions of Stuart Dempster and Pauline Oliveros.
The second piece, Teeth Of The Second Range, presents a completely different recording process. Recording and re-recording the alto, tenor, and bass trombones builds “a choir of unplayed or phantom brass instruments”. Because of this “iterative room resonance process”, this piece is a reference to another classic from the canon of experimental music: Robert Ashley’s I Am Sitting In A Room (but in this case without the spoken voice).
The technical and conceptual background of Barbier‘s “research into resonance, spatial acoustics, and the physical behaviour of sound” may sound complex and academic, but the result is not: these two fascinating drone pieces (both around 18 minutes) are a pleasure to listen to. Drone music at its finest!
Available on CD (limited edition: 50) and as a digital download.