The seventh solo album of Norwegian innovative percussionist Ingar Zach was recorded at the highly reverberating space of Emanuel Vigeland’s Mausoleum in Oslo and explores the vitality of such a unique space to the sonic possibilities of Zach’s instruments – vibrating speakers in contact with the membranes of a snare drum, timpani and Gran Cassa. The album, Musica Liquida, is the first audio document of Zach’s ongoing artistic research project at the Academy of Music in Oslo and was recorded in June 2021.

Musica Liquida offers three distinct and enigmatic compositions, but all explore oceans of sounds resonating in the space of the Mausoleum, as well as Zach’s thoughtful way of orchestrating and layering these sounds. Zach calls these compositions, a ceremonial, rhizomatic experience, that made him ‘unlearn’ his instruments, and simply be a musician with a palette that expands beyond a fixed instrumental practice.

The first piece «Mercurio» blossoms slowly and gently from a mysterious and austere drone to a rich, almost symphonic texture of resonating sounds, acoustic ones, industrial-like and folk-like sounds, then drowns in a deafening silence and rises again in wave-like movements. Zach sounds as if he attempts to suggest a powerful ritual of being washed by an ocean of sounds. The cover photo of French photographer Eléonore Huisse, who focuses on contemplation and captures of auratic moments, captures faithfully the spirit of this piece. The second piece, «Increspature su un lago» (ripples on a lake in Italian) builds its mysterious tension carefully and methodically and sketches a cinematic texture that slowly becomes more layered and more unsettling. The last piece «Vapore» has a subtle exotic, Far Eastern ceremonial touch, often disturbed by sudden, raw resonating sounds, and this tension creates a hypnotic, haunting beauty.

Eyal Hareuveni

Ingar Zach (perc, vibrating speakers on snare dr, timpani, Gran Cassa)