Phill Niblock: Touch Five (Touch, 2013)
October 24, 2013 at 12:22 am | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Phill Niblock: Touch Five
Celebrating his 80th birthday this month, here’s the newest work by legendary minimalist drone composer Phill Niblock. His drones are microtonal; on the surface, it might just sound like one note played endlessly, but listen deeper and there’s plenty of subtle changes and alterations. It’s a thick cloud of drone, but you can tell that it’s still being played by humans, even while it’s being manipulated by tape or computer. “FeedCorn Ear” is a cello piece and does subtly progress, it definitely ends up on a higher tone than it starts. “A Cage Of Stars” is a piece for electric harp, which is bowed and doesn’t sound at all like a harp; it’s a longform drone which very gradually adds and subtracts notes, in a very hypnotic way. The second disc consists of 3 different performances of the piece “Two Lips”, each by different guitar quartets: Zwerm, Dither and Coh Da. This piece is played by musicians listening to tones through headphones, and playing what they’re hearing. There’s two different simultaneous scores, but the musicians are all in the same room and playing together, unaware of what’s being played in the other artists’ headphones. Half the group is playing a straightforward tone, gradually shifting and adding microtonal embellishments; the other half of the group is doing the opposite, starting out by adding variations but then gradually playing a straightforward tone. Of the three versions, the Dither recording seems to be the most tense and dissonant, with Coh Da’s being the most downcast and dreary. Zwerm’s is maybe more balanced than the other two, and might have the most noticeable variation, but it’s hard to tell.
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