CD – Opa Loka

Richard van Kruysdijk, aka Cut Worms, follows his two previous releases on Opa Loka – Cable Mounds and Lumbar Fist – with Breath Mule, a distinctive and hybridized aesthetic that can be found in the subtle relationships between noise, dissonance and melody. The Dutch artist never uses prefabricated rhythms or loops and each of his compositions arise in an intuitive and adventurous way from the manipulations of simple electronic sources, mainly generated by monophonic synth (Moog Werkstat) and by autoharp (Suzuki Omnichord), instruments he employs to give a particular sonic imprint, both classical and futuristic. Cut Worms keeps the sequences quite minimal and repetitive, in an ambient experimental style typical of the period between the late seventies and early eighties. As Peter Christopherson of Throbbing Gristle said at the time “you can make a song with two chords, but why use so many?” Evidently a certain sense of atmosphere prevails and the discreet character of the compositions references Brian Eno and his companions, musicians who in turn popularized the seminal works of Terry Riley and Philip Glass, or even Erik Satie. Only “Slashed Hostage”, the last and most extensive composition of almost twelve minutes, deviates a little from the previous approach, resulting in a dark and industrial tone. The track features text from an English translation of a poem by Giacinto Scelsi, himself a refined and controversial composer and the first follower of twelve-tone music in Italy and another precursor to minimalism. A sort of stylistic ancestry is thus completed, always avoiding overly decorative or cinematic temptations, not settling into insistent structural contrasts, leaving each composition the time and space to settle the bass tones and textures. Overall, it is a dense and engaging sound. It is a pity that this will be van Kruysdijk’s last album under the moniker Cut Worms, although we can’t exclude the possibility that we will see other experiments from this composer in the future.

 

Cut Worms – Breath Mule