Listening: 24 April 2013

Quickly checked the Krake compilation this morning. Started with Thomas Koner's 'The Weary Seer', originally from 2010 and typical Koner - all amorphous grey mist. Then my first hearing of Dadub so no idea whether the Koner-esque drone of 'Synchronic Pattern' is representative of his sound, imagined he was a techno producer. Pole's 'Wipfel Dub' was the most pleasing, from the first of his Waldgeschichten 12"s on his own Pole label (a rebranding of Scape?), which I'd missed until recently hearing Waldgeschichten 3. These show a real return to original form, crisp and spacious dub patterns which could have come out on Scape 10 years ago but they're unusually well crafted and effortlessly enjoyable:



Given the appearance of Kid606 too, Krake seems a real throwback to the glitch era where compilations like this were rampant. Its status as an accompaniment to a festival reveals modest aims: a take-home souvenir of sorts. However parent label Killekill describe Krake's aim as presenting 'strictly challenging artists, no bullshit, no boredom.' In which case their decision to release as their first product a compilation of many old artists and recent offcuts is problematic.



After this played all of Lubomyr Melnyk's Corollaries. Melnyk's been around since the 1970s and is famed for his 'continuous music', ceaseless arpeggios and rapid flurries played by human hands. Given the reviews and blurbs I'd expected something more jaw-droppingly frenetic a la Nancarrow, Mazulis or even Charlemagne Palestine but it's rather subdued, bucolic even, certainly more 'musical':



Most pieces spring from Glass/Reich like patterns before branching out into lush emotional vistas. In this sense Melnyk seems more influenced by Franz Liszt and the virtuosic romantic tradition.

Minimal Piano: Robert Haigh and Machinefabriek's Sol Sketches

Minimal piano albums by 'home-listening' composers are a dime a dozen and usually dull as dishwater, but so inoffensive, calm and polite as to make antagonism seem unnecessarily harsh. Nonetheless it is easy, lazy and indulgent music, and itself largely unnecessary when there's so much old music to discover and rediscover. Given the vast volume of the stuff being churned out, I'm not alone in finding minimal piano music particularly enjoyable.

One such artist I've only just been made aware of is Robert Haigh. He's a firm Satie devotee, borrowing liberally in places, but respectfully, and only the most 'Satie-esque' stuff - those modal suspended patterns that define the Gnossiennes and Gympnopedies (No one seems brave enough to take on the late-Satie of Parade or Socrate).



So it's certainly lite, but never pathetic, and successfully avoids any George Winston new-agey Muzac comparisons, just. Apparently his 1980s releases are where it's at, but those from 2008-, such as Written on Water and last year's gorgeous Anonymous Lights show a return to form. Just avoid those in between, as he slathered awkward breakbeats over them and called himself The Omni Trio.





Machinefabriek's Rutger Zuydervelt demonstrates his knack for acoustic simplicity with Sol Sketches, a series of supremely reduced piano miniatures released in advance of the documentary film on artist Sol LeWitt they soundtrack. Zuydervelt looks to Morton Feldman and specifically Ligeti's infuriating Musica Ricercata, basing each sketch on mere handfuls of notes, with subtle processing allowing notes to continue to sound long beyond their usual decay. This gives them a form analogous to Akira Rabelais' Satie and Bartok deconstructions Eisoptrophobia, or Jonathan Coleclough's excellent Period, but Zydervelt is purer still. Even those pieces most reliant on processing, droning strings humming beneath slow, sparse triads, retain a minimalist purity absent from all but the most refined compositions, like Arvo Part recorded in an anechoic chamber. Those with some cash to spare ought to shell out for the limited 4 x 10" vinyl release + bonus eraser, as the artwork matches the beauty of the sounds.

Dropped Pianos

Good to see Tim Hecker deliving further into the material of Rave Death 1972 with Dropped Pianos, which extends the opening 'Piano Drop' into 9 bleaker, more reduced sketches, literally titled such. There's the granular smear of yore, but with mournful piano patterns featured there's a stronger similarity to Leyland Kirby. Nothing on YouTube yet (give it time...) but here's the original 'Piano Drop':



... Which, given the '1972' in the original album title, could be a reference to 'MIT's first piano drop, 1972', now an annual tradition. This footage ends with very famous piano noise indeed:


Here it is again in 2009 (no 2011 yet, and more interesting than the 2010 footage):


Nothing new in destroying pianos, here 'Fluxus artists' destroy one - look like dickheads to me:


This was more interesting - performance art on Northern Exposure, when Chris flung Maggie's piano:


Pranks from annoying idiots on telly. Premise is almost interesting:


And a round piano - Christian Marclay's Pianorama at London's Roundhouse, featuring the hands of Steve Beresford:


I once had a piano I bought for a pittance in Japan and made a drunken racket with Onkyo koto player Brett Larner, dancing on the keys, jumping on the lid, kicking it. Here's Brett playing with Ko Ishikawa and Ellen Fullman in Shinjuku in 2005: