Musik! cs658

[A concert recorded in Cologne in 2019. Werckmeister is a quartet consisting of Markus Eichenberger (clarinet), Carl Ludwig Hübsch (tuba), Etienne Nillesen (extended snare drum), and Philip Zoubek (synthesizer) working in admirable empathy. Four improvisers from different countries, intent in the generation of a textural togetherness that properly mixes acoustic and electronic components.
Our main interest within the flow of events is represented by the systematic metamorphosis of the timbral mass. The music may transit through dimensions of pitchless reductionism and unforgiving noise. However, an inherent tendency to atmospheric discoloration surprisingly discloses fragments of alien melodies, bizarre call-and-response activities, boiling liquids, airy perturbations, clusters held long enough to become dissonant drones. The instrumental voices can also be followed separately, or in combinations of two and three, yet a genuine moment of improvisational solipsism is nowhere to be found. The loudness is evidently subjected to repeated oscillations, the musicians capable of switching from ppp to fff in a matter of nanoseconds if they so decide.
Aside from a few obnoxious coughs disrupting the atmosphere (as always, invariably occurring during the sections of lowest volume and greatest subtlety), the record welcomes focused listeners to stimulate them several times over. Lots of turbulent activity, awkwardness in sufficient quantity to eschew expectation, appreciable stretches of barely moving tension. The recording is not exactly hi-fi but the sound is never deprived of substance, which is much more important. Massimo Ricci (Touching Extremes)