What Came Before Me Is Going After Me
Zihua Tan; No Hay Banda
No Hay Discos NHD 006 (zihuatan.bandcamp.com/album/what-came-before-me-is-going-after-me)
Montreal-based Zihua Tan has won many awards for his compositions worldwide, and his background as a semiconductor engineer informs his experimental sound capture design and finely articulate compositional style.
His knowledge of amplification really shines on his debut album what came before me is going after me. Using a wide array of microphones, geophone, hydrophone and close-miking, Tan captures the finest nuances of tonalities and colours of even the most innocuous gestures, allowing his compositions to captivate without overpowering the instrumental delivery. This effect is mesmerizing and speaks to his musical philosophy of acoustic and electronic sounds being fluid and instruments being part of sonic possibilities rather than hierarchal forms as bases for sound.
Percussionist Noam Beirstone delivers remnants present with a delicate nuance and the recording beautifully captures the work. (A video of this performance is available online and is well worth seeing, refreshingly embracing Tan’s philosophy by focusing the cameras throughout the instruments rather than on the performer.)
The second piece is the titular what came before me is going after me, a dreamy textural work in collaboration with Montréal presenter-ensemble No Hay Banda, featuring the quintet of violin, cello, voice, percussion and ondes Martenot. A work that might stretch the uninitiated to unconventional vocal sounds, Tan creates a fascinating exploration of texture and non-hierarchy of instrumentation, allowing the players to use all ways of making sound, and the listener to embark on their own personal attention unmanipulated by volume excesses or preconceived values.
Much like the title of the work, (possibly a reference to Heraclitus, who reportedly said, “No man ever steps in the same river twice”) Tan’s creative compositions are a discovery of time and what was already there.
