surgo |cs083

Scored (if we can say that) for piano and electronics, Surgo is an important statement by Werchowska, who works in a territory bordering on Joachim Kühn's solo properties under the surveillance of a Conlon Nancarrow/Keith Tippett siamese couple. "Passing-Shot" also nods to Cecil Taylor in pretty disordered fashion. Electric crackle and dramatic chords punctuate "Selim Tenamor", a great track that had me recollecting about those vintage silent movies (thinking particularly of Eisenstein) that many artists love to revisit and score anew. The resonant tollings and preparations of "Welche" seal the sentence: this is serious stuff. Werchowska's versatility is indeed what sustains the weight of a record full of different ideas and solutions from piece to piece and never attempting shortcuts to thoughtlessness. Obscurity and gloom, alternated with sapient choice of harmonic (a/di)ssociations, are the basis of a music that furnishes us with glimpses and reflections, the recipe for over 41 minutes of uncontaminated beauty in an album that almost deserves to be rated up there with the Crispells and the Schweizers. Mixing technical dexterity and EAI scents, it is, to my mind, probably the first release on Creative Sources that could be defined a "classic". Massimo Ricci (Paris Transatlantic)