Evan Parker + Lawrence Casserley - Solar Wind (1997)

"I approached Solar Wind by Evan Parker (soprano Sax) and Lawrence Casserley (signal processing instruments) without looking at covers, titles or liner notes. Waves of acoustic, electronic, analog and digital cyclic delays, inseparable music expanding in all directions at once. Particles/waves of sound some with no discernible mass, shooting through. My perception is without pause for association. The intended equal with the unintended. Muffled bottom end and difference tones are sieved from the colliding systems above. I go looking for Parker in this mist - his instrument has expanded into a metasax. Four minutes into the second track he suddenly emerges, the rasp of his reed chased by an attentive delay which diffuses into overall washes and strangely vocal-like side effects. Computational number crunching produces digital glitches and pops that provide a topography, a surface, like the dust in Duchamp's Large Glass. Serene long tones against a faint tapping evolve into sculptured slithers of shimmering unstable filtered tones. At one point there are lots of raucous little harmonized Parkers sounding like my modem. Foreground and background crossfade as new distortions evolve.

This music mimics natural open-ended systems because this is a chaotic natural phenomena itself. The byproducts of process are everywhere, nagging difference tones and the gritty dirt of chaos. Gated turbulence is engulfed by searing long tones that fry your ears with intensity (phased sherbetty tingly sensations). Key clicking foregrounds with power and presence: digital drips in a sea of bright white sound. It's an awesome CD. After listening I peruse the photos of Karen Mirza, Jon Wozencroft's design, the quote from Borges in the booklet and the ambiguous titles. None would have harmed my experience." Jim Denley, Resonance

1. Pachacamac
2. Epicycles
3. Coyolxauhqui
4. The Central Region [for Michael Snow]
5. Tlaloc
6. Solar Wind

Evan Parker - Soprano Sax
Lawrence Casserley - Signal Processing Instruments

link @320 (back again)

Read an article by Casserley himself on the technical apparatus behind this recording here.

Alejandro Viñao - Hildegard's Dream (1994)

The first 3 pieces in this CD form a trilogy for soprano and computer which explores the relationship between melody and timbre in 3 different contexts. Both "Chant d’Ailleurs" [Chant from Elsewhere] and "Borges y el Espejo" [Borges and the Mirror] are concerned with melodic processes based on non European singing models, seeking to extend the syntax of these models beyond their Oriental origin. ‘Chant d’Ailleurs’ takes as a model the chanting tradition of Mongolia and ‘Borges y el Espejo’ that of the classical Arabic singing. ‘Hildegard’s Dream’ functions as a connecting point between these Eastern traditions and the more recent melodic tradition of Europe. The piece, as the title suggests, draws its melodic material from the monophonic singing of the Middle Ages. In those early days, the European melodic syntax was not as different from its Eastern counterpart - as it was to become after the Renaissance - enjoying a rhythmic freedom which had not yet been subjected to the constraints of a rigid meter. This composition marks the beginning of my exploration of melody and timbre which culminated, some 10 years later, in the 3 pieces forming the trilogy. All four works were influenced by the writings of Jorge Luis Borges and his labyrinthine view of the world. His influence was imprecise and diffused and yet I experienced it as something very real. If I try to define it in my own words it is the words of Borges that come to my mind: “luckily we don’t owe ourselves to one tradition. We can aspire to all of them”. Alejandro Viñao

1-3. Chant d'Ailleurs (1992, for soprano and computer)
4-5. Hildegard's Dream (1994, for soprano and computer)
6-7. Borges y el Espejo (1992, for soprano and computer)
8-9. Go (1981, tape composition)

link @320 [Re-Up]