We’ve come a long way from the days of electronic music pioneered by Brian Eno to create sounds of “ambience”.
It seems like the last few years that more and more artists are incorporating electronic sounds into their recordings, be it in the studio or in concert. Particularly in this day of “social distancing”, a musician has to look to other venues for support and framework.
Here are a pair of artists who have taken the next logical step in this musical adventure. Clarinetist Esther Lamneck melds her sounds with various plugged-in minded composers, while composer Gina Biver brings her poems and lyrics to the front of various electro-acoustic chamber ensembles. The results are fascinating, pointing to a rich and uncharted land.
Esther Lamneck has fascinating chops and ideas for these six compositions by as many writers, with each tune using clever algorithmic soundworlds as foundations, with the tunes ranging from 7 minutes to Lars Gragaard’s “Quiet Voice” clocking in at 15+. Lars Gravgaard’s “Quiet Voice” has Lamneck veering between moody dark to high toned excitement as she roams through moody sounds as foggy as a scene from Sherlock Holmes’ “Hound of the Baskervilles” while wood chimes and long shadows surround Lamnecks pure and resonant long tones on Michael Matthew’s “Sky Rings”. Scattering critters create a tensile pulse as Lamneck uses mouthpiece effects of her own as well as klezmer modes on Paul Wilson’s “IHTBY”. A mix of space ship landing atmospheres and Bartok-like percussion serves as a foundation for Lamneck’s whirring and searing for David Durant’s “Faji” and modern classical articulation lurks down dark alleys on Michal Rataj’s “Small Prints”. All of the pieces hold your attention, with the solos serving as a link to the synthetic directions. Fascinating rhythms.
Gina Biver, coming from an 80s rock band background, uses her ep to expand musical horizons. She features six musical vignettes ranging from 1 to just over two minutes, with voice and spoken word sung by Tula Pisano or spoken by either poetess Colette Inez or Biver herself. Besides Biver’s work on “live audio”, there is an acoustic supporting team of Scott Deal/perc, Jennifer Lapple/fl, Angela Murakami/cl, Greg Hiser/vi, Erin Snedecor/cel, Ethan Foote/b and Ina Mircheva Blevins/p mixed and matched throughout.
Pisano’s rich soprano is nimble around Blevins’ pretty piano on “My Priest Father’s Words” while cheery parlor ivories are teemed with a recitation on “Fish Dinner With Oysters Stripped of Their Pearls”. Old World strings and clarinet meld with sounds of ocean and waves around the spoken “The Clouds Above My Childhood Home Were Mountains” with percussion adding a lilt to the chamber group and spoken words on the gentle “Father Song”. A liturgical recitation teams with church bells, creating a push/pull tension with the percussion on “Part Bull, Part Priest” while birds chirp in a Grieg fashion to the woodwinds and spoken words on “Near The Pyrenees”. Stories of voice and sound.
https://neuma140-estherlamneck.hearnow.com/sky-rings