CD – Circum-Disc

The set Peter Orins organized for Happened By Accident is quite basic and lacks electronic instruments. In the seven compositions we can distinguish percussive elements, apart from other items such as bowls, wood and shells. You really need to sharpen your perception to catch the various forms of improvisation – some micro-sounds and audio-wails made by leather rubbings or audible vibrations emanating from the most disparate materials. Maybe the items have been drawn from metals or glass – or maybe not – and any resonance is made with extreme lightness and a studied nonchalance. The composition seems to be the result of choices involving casualty and indeterminacy, with a huge sensitivity to the interactions of the items but also to the possibility of unexpected mistakes, small breaks in the sound fluxes and some weakness in the connections. There is a large use of silences, passages at low volumes or with very few elements, establishing relationships that are never predictable or stable. Undoubtedly, this mix is quite delicate. The musician focuses a great deal of attention on the timbres and sound densities; the exaltation of the uncontrollable and the time scans. The project seems to be deeply inspired by minimalist music. Unsurprisingly, then, it’s released by Circum-Disc, a French label largely associated with jazz and improvisation but also very open to a diverse catalogue. Style hybrids are made possible in this case thanks to broad layers of background noises, drones and cracklings, the effects of an imaginative journey into matter, small movements and actions, a development that is always suspended and full of adventures. Orins naively admits he has “never written a note for percussion”, but this seems not to scandalize anyone anymore, or at least we hope not. What’s extremely important is the construction of intimate relationships between the sounds, sharpening the sensorial capacity of the listeners, and making continuous and suggestive musical fragments, letting us engage in an original work in progress, cultured and anti-academic.

 

Peter Orins – Happened By Accident