Modern and Contemporary

Almost Touching
An Laurence
people | places | records PPR 033 (peopleplacesrecords.bandcamp.com)

Tiohtià:ke/Montreal-based An Laurence 安媛 is a nuanced experimental guitarist, vocalist and multimedia artist. Not only a solo act, she cofounded the Paramorph Collective with composer Kim Farris-Manning, and with flutist Sara Constant, the duo alokori. Laurence’s approach to performance favours pushing the boundaries of received genres such as contemporary classical, electronic music, spoken word and song. Her 15-track Almost Touching features works by five international composers, combining all those influences, sometimes juxtaposed in abrupt ways. 

Emblematic of the record is Elischa Kaminer’s 11-part expansive, moody and challenging Chants d’amour. Nearly 62-minutes long, it could easily have been a separate album. The work of Kaminer, a composer and theatre-maker based in England and Germany, is “located on the intersections of music theatre, sound art, electronic, concert, queer-pop and Yiddish musics.” His recent work often takes on the form of “electro-acoustic landscapes … molded [onto] performers’ own artistry, humour, physicality and musicality.” 

The dizzying, disparate variety of vocal, instrumental, stylistic, electronic and affective devices in Chants d’amour certainly reflects his approach. Another distinct challenge to an Anglo like me is Laurence’s extensive intimate poetic recitations in French sprinkled throughout the work. In my mind’s eye it adds up to a theatrical whole which might perhaps find its ultimate expression on stage or screen.

The sum of the many parts of this major work – as well as of the album as a whole – while often a demanding listen, is never less than engaging. I’ve a feeling we’ll hear much more from An Laurence.

Ashkan Behzadi - Love, Crystal and Stone
TAK Ensemble
TAK Editions (takensemble.bandcamp.com/album/love-crystal-and-stone-2)

The TAK Ensemble and composer Ashkan Behzadi release a song cycle of staggering imagination and originality. Behzadi’s ground-breaking approach to vocal and ensemble writing stretches sonic expression to its outer limits. At times this music is highly kinetic and agitated, unfolding with a seemingly inexhaustible series of magical events. Alternatively there are moments of tender lyricism that invite the listener into mysterious and dusty landscapes that also shimmer with a distant haziness. 

Throughout the seven settings of poetry by Lorca, Behzadi offers a deeply philosophical interpretation that resonates into psychological territory that is at once unsettling and beautiful. The originality of vocal writing and colouristic support in the ensemble is of an innovative quality that pushes musical expression into daring new terrain. Vocalist Charlotte Mundy delivers a performance of breathtaking musicality, placing her among the foremost interpreters of contemporary music. The TAK ensemble approaches the difficult and unrelenting score with brilliant ease and impressive virtuosity. Bravo to all on a stunning recording.

Innertation
Frank Horvat
I Am Who I Am Records (frankhorvat.com)

Canadian composer Frank Horvat’s Innertation allows the listener to simultaneously listen to his music and deal with one’s own personal issues and mindsets in this self-described “continuous 60-minute electronic ambient composition.” Horvat writes that he created this work as an extension to his meditation practice, to allow one to rest and heal while listening to it. It is equally inspirational listening without a meditational or exercise component.

The predominant reflective recurring musical idea heard throughout is comprised of short, single-note melodies with ascending and/or descending intervals, and repeated note segments, reminiscent of the minimalistic genre. Horvat, along with Jean Martin mixing and mastering, successfully develops these ideas for meditation with numerous effects. The calm opening with a tonal, single, wide-spaced-note melody sets the mood, with a gradual inclusion of electronic wash backdrops, sounds which resurface throughout. Drama is achieved with volume changes, varied electronic timbres and tonal jumps with subtle quasi-key modulations. The unexpected, brief, louder accented-notes passage at around the 15-minute mark is especially arousing. High, single, electronic tonal/atonal pitches support facing emotional tension. Interspersed throughout are calming short silence spaces between the earworm melodies and softer volumes. The last ten minutes are a calming, peaceful shift, leading to the closing two-pitch and repeated notes with soft wash ending.

Innertation is a timeless memorable intelligent electronic composition perfectly produced. Horvat’s contemplative sounds encourage repeated listening while meditating, and otherwise too.

MC Maguire – Transmutation of Things
Lizzie Lyon; Orchestra and CPU; MC Maguire
Neuma 159 (neumarecords.org)

You will probably be overwhelmed the first time you listen to this release of two sonic canvasses by techno-pop-wizard MC Maguire. He layers sounds on sounds, so densely that at first it seems there will never be any relief, nor rest for the ears, the panicky sense a loud environment can cause, when one feels crushed by sound. It’s easier the second time; it requires surrender, faith in the strength of mind needed to survive one’s daily trials and chores. If your energy levels are down, maybe wait till they rally before you hit play.

Play is what Maguire does. He plays with source material he openly steals, in this case two pop songs. He plays with time, as any proper composer should, and he bounces balls of colour off walls of solid masonry. There are rhythmic and tonal games, and one or two listenings won’t suffice to catch them all. Reading his deadpan liner notes, you might wonder if there are word games too. Doubtful. His creative processes are apt, though mystifying; I feel like maybe  I can hear what he says he did. You don’t need to know how it works for it to work, any more than a car you drive or a plane you fly in, or the microwave you use to heat your coffee. 

The two tracks are Predisposition, which removes an Ariana Grande song from its original frame and takes it for a ride round the galaxy; and Apophis, named for the (potentially) Earth-shattering asteroid on course to bring about a reckoning on Friday, April 13, 2029. Katy Perry’s lyrics pop in after the cataclysmic orgasmic moment of truth. Both are amazing and beautiful.