BTMZ: 11 Ways to Proceed
(For 4 Ears: CD1035)
Hans Burgener (violin), Richard Teitelbaum (electronics), Gunter Muller (electronics, drums), Carlos Zingaro (MIDI violin)
This is a truly magnificent example of electroacoustics meeting old-fashioned wood and metal in the medium of free improvisation. Seamlessly blending strings and PowerBooks, this quartet creates an imaginary and impossible chamber music, a suite of eleven miniature string quartets performed by aliens.
So seamless is this project, indeed, that picking apart individual contributions is nigh-on impossible. Burgener is the most in evidence as he's the only one who occasionally plays an acoustic instrument, but since so many samples of strings are stirred into the mix on most of these tracks it's very hard to pin even this player down. That's part of the point, one suspects; ego-trips are replaced by the urge to make powerfully imaginative music collectively.
It's not all string-emulation by any means. There are concrete samples, too, such as the eerie sound of someone splashing through water which accompanies some oppressively dark ambient stuff on "Silent Sleet". It's just that, overall, the string sounds on this disc feel like its core, with everything else providing extra colour or atmosphere. That gives this album a real identity, something which projects like this, with their generic bleeps and scrapes, often sadly lack.
No bleeps or scrapes here, then, just wonderfully fertile ideas coming thick and fast. Afficionados of acousmatic or soundscape electroacoustics will find much to enjoy here, as will open-minded followers of contemporary chamber music along with the home crowd, the improv fans. This one is not to be missed.