Take five fearless free-improvisers from the Swiss experimental electro-acoustic scene, let them explore their unique sonic languages on two occasions, in-studio in Kaliningrad, Russia, and three days later, live in Mikroton Mikroten Festival in Moscow, Russia, in September and 2018, and you are guaranteed to listen to some of the strangest yet quite invigorating sounds ever.
This one-off quintet, working together for the first time even though its musicians collaborated before in different formats and outfits, features Berlin-based turntables player Joke Lanz, known as the leader of the Sudden Infant action project, now a trio; American multi-instrumentalist Jason Kahn, who plays here modular synth, radio, and mixer; Norbert Möslang who operates «cracked everyday-electronics», by modifying and recontextualizing the use of home electronics; former percussionist Günter Müller who concentrates on his setup of two iPods and electronics; and bass player Christian Weber, who plays now with sudden Infant but now adds revolver to his sonic toys. Weber is the only musician with a strong background in modern and free jazz and has been collaborating with percussionist Pierre Favre and sax players Oliver Lake, Urs Leimgruber, and Ellery Eskelin and pianist Irène Schweizer.
The in-studio, title-piece suggests a slow and organic weaving of sonic tapestries, nuanced and layered, and never surrender to common syntaxes and recognizable timbres. It is almost impossible to know who is doing what in this rich mix, but the attentive listener still can decipher some shades of minimalist dance pulses within the thick urban-industrial sounds, a blend of invasions of Russian radio transmissions with traditional prayers and occasional mentioning of the name of Michael Jackson. The anarchistic and quite noisy atmosphere sounds as subverting any attempt to discipline these five musicians’ output into any linear, coherent narrative, but these musicians may surprise you with their dynamic sonic depth. The live, «monkey_mountain» begins as an atmospheric soundscape that pays twisted homage to the prog-space-rock era, with its vintage, analog sci-fi bleeps, and cosmic drones, less rough than the title-piece. Patiently, later on, the ethereal envelope thickens but the interplay is still sparse, introverted, and mysterious, obviously, in the eccentric terms of these highly inventive and resourceful musicians.
Eyal Hareuveni
Joke Lanz (turntables), Jason Kahn (modular synth, radio, mixer), Norbert Möslang (cracked everyday-elec), Günter Müller (iPods, elec), Christian Weber (b, revolver)
