Not one to rest on his laurels, Norway's Thomas Stronen is the founder of the
astral avant-jazz
ensemble Food, a participant in the florid patchwork that is Humcrush, and the
Maria Gannegaard Trio;
he now dons the guise of solo artist with this effort, Pohlitz.
Traditional Gamelan music is an influence, but so too is the phase work of
Steve Reich, not to mention
the early electronic experiments of countryman Arne Nordheim. That being
said, Stronen does not
simply find a node within this system of speech, but uses it as a means of
ascending to more personal,
one might say contemporary, pursuits. Essentially a work of percussive
elements, this small palette of
colors is nevertheless looped, panned, and delayed into a baffling array of
stark, improvised
abstractions laced with silvery hues, and scudding, gritty drones.
The
album's greatest pull stems
from its attempts to fuse fragmented melodies and opaque drumming against
backgrounds of effulgent
synth washes. When the pulse of this finely spun work picks up, the ensuing
mixture of melodic
moments and strangled electronic buzzes can be quite sensual and enticing.
Every now and again,
however, the pace recedes, and while this is not a detriment in itself, the
decision nevertheless has the
effect of making compositions too light and too splintered, giving the listener
a chance
to become harshly aware
of the nature of the atomic, isolated, altogether limited percussive movements
of which this work
wholly consists. When this happens, the motifs that repeat throughout are
made most evident, and songs lapse into tedium.
Other moments, such as "Lavoisier" and "Dispatches," once again demonstrate a
versatile touch, as
Stronen winds lulling drones around light snare swats before burrowing below
these elements and
bringing out a radioactive slurry of live electronics. Much in this manner,
the staccato chatter of the
grainy perturbed textures of "Ingenious Pursuits" stand in fine contrast to
the Eastern rhythms that
imbue the piece with a strong bodily appeal. Over the album's playing time of
just under 40 minutes, the narrow sound sources
sometimes get the better of Stronen. But for all that, this first full-length
solo effort houses numerous detailed,
boldly configured
compositions.
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