CD – Crónica

The sounds in Against Nature have been generated and recorded between October and November 2013 during a residency with Kunstsenter Agder, in Kristiansand, Norway, by Simon Whetham. Whetham is an experimenter known for his releases on Entr’acte, Helen Scarsdale, Line and Baskaru. The field recordist, who is accustomed to calibrating addictive acoustic explorations of space and resonant objects, has given the mastering process to Miguel Carvalhais. The variety of methods and techniques used sometimes strains listening; it is never predictable. This is a consequence of Whetham’s choice to use unexpected details, fomented by malfunctions and tumultuous iterations, in a crescendo infused with hum, crackerie and intercut vortex drones. There are five tracks, all with the same album name followed by a consecutive number. The longer ones (the first, third and fourth) with very dilated sequences, turn in the guise of exhausting drones or polyrhythms pervaded by free form clutches and penetrating pulsations, with adventurous evolutions. The shorter tracks are more exciting and have immediate hooks, the second with a haunting riff, the fifth with bass and powerful frequencies, accompanied by a vibration that is quite physical and addictive. Such a dynamic interpretation of “nature” here becomes a pretext to further ask ourselves what is the specific essence of music, a conceptualisation that seems in conflict with today’s tendencies towards niche. If music means the art of organising sounds and noises, over time and space and if the emotional experience of the artist remains central to the work should not emphasize once again that these experimentations are well-crafted compositions creating a new aesthetics? “The contemporary is the modern of tomorrow” Oskar Schlemmer underlined and for this release it seems like an appropriate quotation to remember.

 

Simon Whetham – Against Nature