Gobi Drab is a Viennese experimental recorder player (including the paetzold, the great double bass recorder), free improviser and educator (and a yoga teacher) whose repertoire spans from free improvisation to contemporary composition and early music. She has studied improvisation  (with trumpeter Franz Hautzinger and guitarist Burkhard Stangl), contemporary dance and improvisation workshops, and is a member of PLENUM – a paetzold recorder ensemble. songs from home is Drab’s debut solo album, was conceived during the global Covid-19 pandemic lockdown and was recorded in her former living room in Vienna during July and August 2020. It was mixed and mastered by local sound artist Daniel Lercher, and released by Scatter Archive with its pay-what-you-can-afford policy.

Drab performs five distinct pieces, that «have lived in Gobi’s head for a good while», all highlight her idiosyncratic and highly imaginative sonic vision. In the opening piece «ein» she converses with herself, employing her wordless vocals and recorder overtones to create a suggestive but vulnerable drone. «quer» investigates the sonic possibilities of the paetzold and creates a playful storm made of woody, deep-toned bowed instrument sounds matched with light percussive instrument sounds. «tum»  is a quiet, a meditative drone that takes the paetzold to abstract electroacoustic regions. Drab plays with bird calls on the folky «glas», sounding like inventing a series of folk songs at full speed. The last «stein» sketches a dramatic and mysterious ritual where Drab’s recorders whisper, talk, chant and offer enigmatic incantations.

Eyal Hareuveni      

Gobi Drab (recorder, peatzold recorder, v)