arousal city |cs084

Keyboardist Paul Giallorenzo is probably best known around town as one of the driving forces behind the eclectic performance space Elastic Arts (formerly known as 3030 when it occupied an old Humboldt Park church), but he’s also an active presence on the local free jazz and experimental music scene. Along with saxophonist Dave Rempis, cornetist Josh Berman, bassist Anton Hatwich, and drummer Frank Rosaly, he’s a member of the group Get In to Go Out, which has a forthcoming album due on 482 Music. But it's with his duo, Masul, which recently released its debut, The Arousal City (Creative Sources), that he's captured in a much more abstract light.
A collaboration with Swiss reedist Thomas Mejer (who enjoyed a fruitful Chicago residency a few years back as part of the Sister Cities program with Lucerne) Masul crafts subdued yet colorful electro-acoustic meditations, shuffling cycled melodic snippets, hovering drones, gently rippling noise, and all manner of sibilant breathiness (courtesy of Mejer’s whispery, unpitched columns of air). Giallorenzo is credited with piano, synthesizer, found samples, and computer, and it’s to Masul’s credit that the genesis of any given sound often remains hazy, both musicians managing to forge a rich entwined sound stream where the subtle interactions are clearly audible. Peter Margasak (Chicago Reader)

The duo of Paul Giallorenzo (synthesizer, piano, found samples, computer) and Thomas Mejer (contrabass saxophone, found samples, computer), Masul are a pretty mysterious proposition since the very first minutes of "The arousal city", a recording juxtaposing two live performances from 2004 and 2005 in Chicago. Darkish loops and pulsating asynchronisms depict dejected atmospheres in which Mejer's saxophone recites an important role, underlining faint remembrances and flickering nocturnal lights with long sighs, sputtering syllables and apparently incongrous abstractions. Giallorenzo works undercover, but the fact that I didn't hear a single recognizable synthetic timbre for the large part of the CD is the best certificate of programming intelligence I could attribute in this instance. The treated voices of "Arousal City #2" and "Pops" sound like a disquieting nightmare where all the senses are drowned in molasses, while "Arousal City #3" is the only segment with the pretence of a proper "rhythm" and a few elegant keyboard lines over it. Half theatre soundtrack, half suburban meditation, this series of sleepy, blurred snapshots is one of the most atypical releases in Creative Sources' recent output and, in a way, one of the most unsettling ones. We're never sure of what's going to happen, remaining completely entangled in this strange deformation of reality, a kind of disturbed trance that wraps us inexorably, just like a spider does with its prey stuck in the web. Massimo Ricci (Touching Extremes)

O duo Masul é composto por Paul Giallorenzo e por Thomas Mejer. Giallorenzo é improvisador de Chicago, oriundo de Nova Iorque, devotado ao desenho sonoro através de piano e derivados electrónicos. Nesta actividade, tem apreciado todos os contextos estéticos, jazz, noise, improvisação livre, electroacústica, o que vier, em troca de experiências com Fred Lonberg-Holm, Jeb Bishop, Dave Rempis, Tim Daisy e outros. Mejer, de Lucerna, Suiça, também tem formação jazzística e estudou com Urs Leimgruber, Marcus Weiss e Vinko Globokar, dedicando-se essencialmente ao trabalho com saxofone contrabaixo em grupos com Martin Schütz, Fredy Studer, Michael Zerang, Fred Lonberg-Holm e outros. A proposta que elaboraram conjuntamente, intitulada The Arousal City (Creative Sources Recordings, 2007), inscreve-se num domínio estético muito vasto e activo, o da música improvisada de base electroacústica, com a vantagem de ser original relativamente à maioria dos projectos que têm vindo a surgir nesta área, um pouco por toda a parte. Paul Giallorenzo e Thomas Mejer apresentam uma proposta encantatória, no limiar entre o sono e a vigília. Com uma base instrumental constituída por sintetizador, piano, samples, computador (Giallorenzo), e saxofone contrabaixo, samples, e computador (Mejer), o duo ficciona estados alternados de lucidez e alienação, consciência e inconsciência, que percorre de cima a baixo num tom dolente de torpor glauco, induzido pelas tonalidades sépia e cinza que vão sendo impressas em fonogramas de exposição lenta. Inquietante é a permanente sensação de que algo está para acontecer a cada passo, tão bem a dupla gere o dramatismo e o momentum das ocorrências. Para tanto, além da execução instrumental, em que se destaca o espesso e prolongado rumorejar do saxofone, o piano distante e o drones electrónicos, indutores de estados sonoros que primam por uma certa irrealidade melancólica, o Masul aplica várias lentes sobre a realidade circundante, desfocam-na intencionalmente e fragmentam-na em imagens parcelares, sem que com isso a música perca a coerência interna e a noção de conjunto ao longo da narrativa não-idiomática que vai tomando forma. A sensação geral é a que se tem ao acordar de um sonho de que fica pouco para recordar. Visões difusas, agradáveis e envolventes, que fogem no preciso instante em que se deixam aprisionar. Gravação de 2005, realizada no 3030 (actual Elastic), em Chicago. Eduardo Chagas (Jazz e Arredores)

Wow, even thought I love Creative Sources and even if I think despite its hyper-productivity is still one those labels that deserves a particular consideration for the great mount of music (and musicians) they’ve been putting together. On the other hand the considerable risk is that of an homologated view of the electro-acoustic scenario, but with releases like this one the whole perspective changes considerably. Obviously you have some of the distinctive sound solutions of the label, but Giallorenzo and Mejer sometimes throw in some contemporary classic interventions that make it special. Sometimes I’ve had the impression I was listening to some compositions by Centazzo, Berio or Feldman hybridized with some electro-acoustic ideas. Another thing I can’t but appreciate is that this duo is not afraid of playing melodic though in a minimalist mood, clearly they’ve their personal conception of melody but they manage to build some really suggestive atmospheres. In the third excerpt of Arousal City, when they keep playing a simple melody in this minimal-serial way, you can also perceive some reminiscences of Terry Riley (sometimes it really reminded me so much of “in C”) most basic works. This release sounds minimal but really intense and above all it grows during the listening. I’m tented to talk about this work in terms of “strength through simplicity”, but I feel I’ve to underline the fact if you love contemporary music with melody and with heart, you should definitely try this out. Andrea Ferraris (Chain DLK)