Jessica Sligter & Wilbert Bulsink – Volume 1 – Untitled + 2 – The Mute

jessica-slighter-wilbert-bulsink

CD – Unsounds

Volume 1 – Untitled + 2 – The Mute, released by Unsounds, is a voice and live electronics project. Recorded in studio in Sweden after some concerts performed by the experimental composers Jessica Sligter and Wilbert Bulsink, it also features two instrumentalists, Kari Ranneklev on violin and Ole-Henrik Moe on viola. After listening to the first track, laconically named “A”, it’s clear that the work is based on the female voice. The voice is modulated, dilated, subjected to hypnotic and abyssal scans and submitted to some atonal interweaves. We are reminded of the free interpretation tradition, the result of a consolidated technique and at the same time a practice capable of opening listening experience to the different elements of the composition. The following short track “B” is on the opposite silent and it can be considered as a pause of perception before “C”, which shows a direct outburst, somehow more traditional and folk-like in the singing part, with a background full of a continuous and cacophonous flux of sounds, made on purpose extreme and definitely not serene. The next track swipes between the spoken and the sung, starting with no sounds and then showing in the background some rare interventions of sibilant electronics. Contrarily, the fifth and final track, “E”, begins just with sounds, very imaginative and dark, and later moves to be all-encompassing, alternated by some pauses of total silence. This is definitely not an easy album. The structure of the compositions is complex and always changing, despite being apparently based on few elements. The listening experience is not immediately engaging, the inexperienced to this sound won’t find it easy to get lost in the album’s atmospheres; however, the quality of the composition is unquestionable. Jessica Sligter debuted with Fear And The Framing using her real name only in 2012 and a few years later published A Sense Of Growth. Her former works already accustomed her audience to a mix of avant-garde, folk and jazz. Now with Wilbert Bulsink everything has become more elaborate, cerebral, dense and urgent.