Vanishing Point comprises eleven tracks running to 47 minutes. It's a sister album with my previous album Natural History - it uses the same sources, minus the field recordings - a combination of found metals, plastics, glass, wood and processing (using Leafcutter John's Forester 2022 software).
The work began by recording materials in a large resonant concrete interior. Metals in the form of saw blades, alarm bells, coiled springs, steel stands, metal conduit, wire mesh and Chinese cymbals were struck, swung and dragged in the space to capture the unique sound character of materials in motion. A variety of other metals were thrown and bounced about the space, and glass bottles were smashed. A small improvised horn with a flexible tube was played whilst whirling the tube. A long length of plastic cable was similarly whirled, as was a bull roarer. Large wooden laths were dropped and dragged in the space.
Leafcutter John's Forester multi-FX software was used as a kind of blender to throw random selections of edited recordings into and digitally whisk into new forms and textures. The most successful moments were then edited into loops and textured stretches which are used as the building blocks for the compositions. Strong rhythmic elements emerged from the process which gave some of the music a driving, motive force I really enjoyed. Forester is great fun to play with, but like anything of this nature, the ratio of useful material generated to not so useful can vary considerably. This is where the real job of work occurs: editing and fine tuning.
Kelly also uses the Forester 2022 software, developed by Leafcutter John. He uses this as a "kind of blender to throw random selections of edited recordings into and digitally whisk into new forms and textures". Kelly is a percussion player and yet that's not something that is all too obvious; not on many of his previous releases, but even more on this new one.
In what I think of as a musique concrète-like tradition, the editing process and the processing with software bring Kelly's music into a different territory from traditional solo percussion music. It's not live music anyway, allowing him to act as a composer more than a performer, but snippets of him performing in situ as scattered around the 11 compositions on this album. As with 'Natural History', Kelly is on the firm abstract ground here, with lots of drone-like sounds, broken-up metallic textures, and objects smashing. It is a vivacious feeling, very organic, and none of this feels forced or rushed. As before, there isn't a weaker brother (or sister) in sight, and it's indeed a lovely companion to 'Natural History'. A different kind of drumming !"
Frans de Waard/Vital Weekly
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