OK, I’ll be honest, I am not sure how much the music of Lionel Marchetti and Olivier Capparos’ album Equus (grand véhicule) relates to Peter Shaffer’s play of the same name, a tale of a man’s religious and sexual infatuation with horses. there are a number of texts on the CD insert, all in French though, and while I began to translate one of them, (a tale indeed about a horse) I just don’t have the mental energy tonight to complete the task. I wonder actually though if my enjoyment of this rather nice disc of musique concrete is not enhanced by not knowing the details behind its conception.

Capparos is a new name to me, while Marchetti is certainly not. How much each composer contributes to the creation of the album, and how they went about the task is also unclear. Both are credited equally, but Capparos is generally considered (according to Google) to be as much of a poet as he is a composer, and the music here certainly sounds very much like a typical Marchetti composition, so who exactly contributed what to the 33′33″ long album remains a mystery, but it doesn’t really matter.

The music is split into three parts (alas not all 11′11″ in length!) but the links between tracks are seamless. From the outset a very nice sample of a horse’s charging hooves, recorded through the ground can be heard, but then the equine relationship is harder to follow. While this sample reappears now and again we generally hear fragments of spoken voices, mostly in French, bits of classical and old popular music and muted, slow pieces of gently roaring or quietly fluttering abstraction. There is a tendency for sounds to slowly rise up in little flurries from otherwise distant, murmuring beds of tone, hiss and crackle, little grabs of voice suddenly becoming clear and grabbing the foreground, and sudden clicks and cuts announcing the start or end of a given sample, as with many of the musical traditions of concrete.

Marchetti’s music is for me virtually keeping the traditions of musique concrete alive on its own, certainly he is one of very few composers currently working in this precise area whose work I continue to find of great interest. What I always take from his music is the degree of care taken over every musical choice made, every placement of a sound, the use of anticipation, surprise, and the way that the music is extremely beautiful as often as it is jarring or ugly. I am reminded of the way my (antique silversmith) Mother might consider a piece of carefully crafted jewellery. Perhaps two pieces could appear of similar worth and quality at a glance, but more careful observation will reveal the subtleties that identify quality craftsmanship and a more original creative touch. Equus works wonderfully as one large work, but it also works nicely in its three parts, or each little fragment, each rise in activity resulting in a rush of hooves, a scream, a shouted voice or something more musically unrecognisable sounds good on it own. The album is more than a sewn together collage of these little outburts however. there are no actual silences, everything is constantly bubbling away, but there is always a tension present that suggests things will suddenly explode, just as they usually do.

As it is that time of the year when people start posting their Best of the Year lists all over the internet I have seen Equus appear in a few of these, and I can see why. It was actually recorded some seven to eight years ago now though, which may be an indication of the timelessness of the music on the album, or perhaps the stagnant position of the musique concrete genre in more general terms, but lets be generous and assume the former for now. Good stuff, up amongst the best work I have heard from Marchetti, and a nice introduction to Capparos.

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I am pleased to say that my first review of a CD appeared in The Wire magazine this month: (Jan’10 Edition) a review of the Kurzmann/Dafeldecker/Wishart/Tilbury release on the Mikroton label. Hopefully it will be the first of many, but we shall see.