invisible dance for violin: chrissie caulfield on troy schafer

March 31, 2015 at 12:10 pm | Posted in new music, no audience underground | Leave a comment
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Troy Schafer – Action for Solo Violin (tape, Dusty Grass Imprint, edition of 100 or download)

troy schafer - action

I’m a sucker for a solo violin piece.  It’s not the purity of the single instrument, oh no. I have no time for purity in music, for me hybridity is the way, but I love the idea of taking a single instrument and stretching it as far as it will go, or combining it with something unexpected. Like dance. Or, in this case, an invisible dance!

For that is what Troy Schafer has done here. It’s a dance for a violinist, but you don’t see the movement – just four tantalising photos giving a mere hint of what is going on in the course of this album. The reviews quoted on the download site lament that there is no video available of the performance but I think this is actually a feature and not a bug (as we say in software). By leaving the movements up to your imagination, Shafer is making you imagine what might be happening rather than giving it to you on a plate. If I’d seen the performance live I’m sure I would have been transfixed, but at home I’d rather listen to a recording and make my own pictures than watch them on a screen, at least where music is concerned.

Where the release does fall down, in my opinion, is that it seems to have been recorded with a single microphone so there is no stereo image to help you with your internal visualisations. A spaced pair would have added hugely to the interest in the sound here and given us a few clues, at least, as to what might be going on. Another thing I feel I would have quite liked him to do would be to detune the strings occasionally to give us more variety in the notes that come through.

And what is going on? Well audibly it’s mostly a lot of clicks, pops and scrapes, there’s quite a lot of scratching of the bow on the strings, plucking them behind the bridge. These are done with much variety, intensity and variety of intensity – he goes from barely audible scratches to sounding like he’s in a small aircraft about to take off. What you won’t find are any ‘normal’ notes. The few times the bow is drawn across a string it’s with such pressure or at such an angle that any semblance of a note is almost a figment of your imagination.

And imagination is key to this recording, I think. Both in Schafer’s idea to make it in the first place, and in your own mind as you listen. As I experience this piece I can imagine all sorts of contortions that the performer gets up to, with both violin and bow, and every time I listen to it those movements change depending on my mood. Of course all music sounds different each time you listen depending on mood, but here you have the four visual starting points to get you going with the dance each time too, and I do strongly recommend looking at the photos before beginning a session with this album.

Surprisingly (well, it surprised me) there really is enough going on to keep you hooked for the full 40 minutes. Just. The interest comes from the subtlety of differences between the effects and the juxtaposition of them. As soon as you begin to wonder whether a particular gesture is going to go on forever, Schafer moves on to something else – sometimes literally as you hear his feet shuffling on the floor. It’s a hard listen at times, there are no long sounds here at all, it’s sparse and percussive for all of it’s duration. I got this as a download rather than the cassette but I think you still need the time between movements to rest your ears and, metaphorically or physically, turn the tape over. In my case I load the album one file at a time into my player software rather than using a playlist.

This album might be mainly a work for violin-nerds, I think I know how all the sounds here were produced and can visualise what is happening at least at the micro level of the performance – e.g. what the bow is doing on the strings – but maybe some ignorance or less detailed knowledge of the instrument and its extended techniques might actually help [Editor’s note: if you want ignorance of technique then I’m your man!]. Perhaps not knowing what on earth is going on adds even more to the mystery dance.  Have a listen and let me know!

—ooOoo—

Dusty Grass Imprint

Troy Schafer on Bandcamp

grins, nods, shrugs shoulders and points: small things on sundays, ap martlet, helicopter quartet

February 3, 2013 at 10:53 am | Posted in new music, no audience underground | Leave a comment
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Small Things on Sundays – Searching For (vinyl album, Skrat Records, skr-011)

ap martlet – a tabletop mountain (self-released download)

Helicopter Quartet – Helicopter Quartet (self-released CD-r or download)

small things on sunday - searching forap martlet - a tabletop mountainhelicopter quartet

Regular readers will know I am sometimes prone to flights of whimsy.  Daniel Thomas – friend, comrade, astute cultural commentator – went as far as to coin the neologism ‘haylerise’ (ha! I just clicked on ‘add to dictionary’ when the spellchecker underlined it!) which he defines as:

Verb: the spontaneous creation and attribution of a narrative as a response (usually involuntary) to an audio recording.

I was so touched and flattered by this amusement that I promised myself that I’d never be so vain as to mention it on this blog.  Ah.  Oops-a-daisy.

Anyway, whilst Dan’s joke does describe my reaction sometimes (indeed my response to certain artists is a kind of ‘narrative synaesthesia’), it isn’t always the case.  Occasionally something is so engaging, so entertaining, such a good fit to my taste that the only option when it is over is to immediately press play again.  Never mind making up stories – expending mental effort in that direction is wasting energy that could be better spent just enjoying what I am hearing.

When I finally escape this reverie I find myself in an evangelical mood: wow, I think, people gotta hear this!  But paradoxically these releases are often the most difficult to write about.  All I want to do is grin, maybe throw some horns during the heavy bits and make that tip-of-thumb-touching-tip-of-forefinger-whilst-nodding gesture that means ‘yeah, OK!!’ during the beautiful bits.  I want to play it to someone else and watch as their eyes open comically wide and they start grinning and nodding too.  It’s a bit visual for a wordy blog like this.  I suppose what I can do here is implore you thus: folks, if you take anything I say seriously then perhaps you should check at least one or two of these items out.  Look: I’ve got my earnest, sincere face on and everything.

First up is Searching For, the new vinyl album by Small Things on Sundays.  These guys and their label – Skrat Records – are impressively organised: this was sent to me a month before its official release date (19th January) with a helpful full page press release that I’ll be trying not to crib from too much.  Those with eagle-eyes and elephant-memories will have noticed the format is ‘vinyl’ and will remember the last time I was sent something on this heritage medium (LPs from Molotov/Fuckin’ Amateurs) I had to guess at the contents due to my turntable not working.  Well, since then it has had a stern talking to, has been threatened with the business end of a screwdriver and has grudgingly agreed to cooperate.  Thus I’ve given this platter multiple spins, even with my beloved wife in the room.

Yes, you read that right: officially sanctioned by the whole Hayler household and I reckon the baby will dig it too.  The duo of Henrik Bagner and Claus Poulsen have garnered favourable reviews here before (Small Things: here, Claus solo: here, Claus as part of Star Turbine: here) but this is probably the lightest and most accessible of their recordings that I have heard.  Is it noise?  Yes, of an ambient, airy, spacious nature.  Does this mean it is insubstantial?  Absolutely not.  It has been constructed with charm and love and the interplay of the various elements (press release sez: “The basic sounds on the LP are derived from live improvisations, using turntables, bowed guitar, toy keyboard, viola and laptops.”) is subtle and sophisticated.  Technically it is detailed, balanced and yet unselfconscious and transparent.  It can burble happily as background drift or, should the volume be tweaked upwards, immerse you in its slow-moving fluidity.  Very lovely.

Next is a tabletop mountain, the latest chewy treat freely downloadable from ap martlet, the solo project of Dave Thomas (otherwise to be found sparring with Daniel Thomas in Hagman).  This one is an entire Summer’s day spent fried on acid – getting sunburnt, eating ice cream, laughing at bees – squashed down to a delirious ten minute summary.  Or perhaps the orgiastic climax of a drunken party held by a buzzing gang of animate hairclippers, come alive Toy-Story-style after the barber has gone home for the night.

I remain amazed that Dave just sneaks these modest masterworks of electrical wrenching and tweaking onto Soundcloud.  If I ever came up with stuff as good as this then I would organise a parade with elephants in feathered headdresses.  My dream would be to find someone with the vision (and money) to release, say, four of Dave’s best 10-15 minute Soundcloud tracks as a 12″ double pack – mastered in muscular fashion on vinyl as thick as manhole-covers – then batter the world over the head with it until it topped the best-of-the-year lists in every publication from radiofreemidwich to Total Carp Magazine.  C’mon, patrons!

Finally, there is the self-titled debut by Helicopter Quartet, the duo of Chrissie Caulfield (violin, synth) and Michael Capstick (guitar, bass) augmented by their gigantic collection of effects pedals. This is available as a donations welcome/free download from that Bandcamp or a snazzy CD-r made up to look like a dinky vinyl LP (pictured above) from the band in person. It has four tracks, lasts about 33 minutes and is awesome.

I was lucky enough to be on the bill with Chrissie at the Hogwash gig where I played my final pre-fatherhood midwich set (coming soon: more about forgets who also played that night).  I was mesmerised by her command of her kit: violin and a bewildering array of effects pedals (about 20 by my reckoning).  The shifts in tone from high-modernist drone-screech to grime-caked sludge metal to wistful, ambient folk were so assured they suggested rigorous rehearsal yet so fluid as to seem entirely improvised.  Fuck, I thought, gobsmacked: follow that.

(Aside: Chrissie’s recorded solo stuff is as good.  I wholeheartedly recommend, for example, Outside which is freely downloadable from her own Bandcamp page.  It is a collection of augmented field recordings made around Leeds and is an engaging, accomplished, delight.)

Chasing things up after the show led to me downloading the Helicopter Quartet album from Bandcamp and falling in love with it in the heady, two-week, whirlwind romance that followed.  There are passages as austere and fragile as the most accomplished 90s post-rock, there are moments of abrasive heaviness deep enough to take down anything Swans are up to nowadays, but most importantly it is thick with beauty.  Not anodyne prettiness, not superficial attractiveness but beauty as awe-inspiring force of nature.

By the time Friday 25th January rolled around, the date of the next HQ gig, I was a fan.  As I excitedly waited for the bus into town the weather was inclement but not distractingly so.  By the time I got to Wharf Chambers, however, it had deteriorated to white-out blizzard.  Sadly, this occurring during the crucial deciding-whether-or-not-to-leave-the-house hours led to the gig being poorly attended.  This was disappointing, of course – I imagine money was lost – but even if the room had been packed out (as it should have been you lazy good-for-nothings!  What’s a little snow compared to ART, eh?) I think my experience of their set would have been just as latched-on and unmediated.  They were terrific.

Despite also enjoying the ethereal folk of headline act Lost Harbours, I decided to leave a few minutes early on the off chance of getting a bus.  The weather remained awful but, amazingly, they were still running.  God bless public transport.  The ride – surrounded by giddy drunk people, mostly on the wrong side of the road, at speeds of around five miles per hour – was a pleasant blur and I did something that I haven’t done in years: listened to the band I’d just been to see on my walkman as I journeyed home.  My righteous determination to attend has been rewarded handsomely.

Here’s the Bandcamp link again.  A copy of the CD-r can be borrowed from the UML.

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