Well that was just great… I left Oxford as usual on the same train home to Didcot, only to find it pass straight through Didcot and head off twenty miles past to Cholsey, a tiny town with a tiny, empty, unmanned and freezing cold station. There I, and the rest of the passengers supposedly getting off at Didcot had to wait in sub-zero temperatures for another forty minutes to get on a train back again. So I got home at half past midnight. I’m not at all happy tonight. I have not had a good day.. Angry emails will be sent tomorrow. Still, at half one now I am still sitting down to write about the music I have listened to today. (got to clear that backlog somehow…)

I must admit to being very unsure about this record before I listened to it. Musik – Ein portrait in Sehnsucht is a recent release on Erstwhile by Burkhard Stangl and Kai Fagaschinski. The reason for my uncertainty is based upon recent Erstwhile CDs that these two have appeared on separately, both of which focussed on the combination of improvised, abstract forms with pop music, In Fagaschinski’s case the Magic I.D release, and Stangl the live Schnee disc. The recent NeuSchnee album from 2009 is actually the first Erstwhile release I have not even bothered to purchase in ten years, simply because, having read descriptions of it I have a good idea it won’t be one I would enjoy. I feared the same might be the case for this Fagaschinski/Stangl release, but reading up on it it did not seem to contain singing and included a number of field recordings, so I picked up a copy.

I am glad I did too. On the whole this is a very satisfying, often exceedingly beautiful and occasionally quite surprising set of seven pieces.The opening three and a half minute long Insight and Longing is a slow, vaguely melodic and extremely simple piece of mostly sustained high clarinet notes and strummed guitar, very subtle, beautifully controlled (the clarinet in particular here) and extremely well recorded. We never quite get a tune, but as Kai has been prone to doing throughout his career, things teeter on the edge, creating an uncertainty to the music that builds an odd tension. The next track, Illusionen takes things a little further, Stangl more active here, again skirting around the perimeter of melody, creating a kind of presumably partly improvised easy listening but with a slightly disconcerting edge. If things stayed like this throughout the album then I don’t think I would enjoy the album a great deal, but they don’t. Midway through this second, seven minute piece as Fagaschinski’s playing shifts into noteless hisses and flutters a deep rumbling recording of thunderstorms appears. This new element completely alters the music for me. The addition of this non-acoustic, non-instrumental layer suddenly presents the music as a more considered, clearly composed and structured composition. If before the musicians sounded like they were close to vague noodling to see where things went, then this feeling is shattered by the sudden shift. The thunderstorm eventually breaks into a loud crash, which ends the second piece and leads directly into a low, brooding feedback hum to begin the third.

The bridge between tracks is very nice indeed, a clever, but also quite natural sounding device that shifts the music again, away from any melody into a tense, atmospheric warmth. The track retains a low, seismic rumble from Stangl throughout the first half of this thirteen minute piece, and Fagaschinski threads small tones around and through it until after a while everything breaks up and a dampened piano appears, with sparsely picked out notes gently expanding into a little more complex structure towards the end of the track. I’m not sure which of the musicians plays it, as both are credited with piano on the sleeve, or if this development occurred in real time or not. I suspect maybe not, and that this section was carefully added as a neat counterpoint to the gentle drones that started the track, but I cannot be sure. Certainly this is beautiful, on the surface very simple but deceptively and subtly complex music.

The brief two minute fourth track is clearly a tip of the hat to Feldman, a gently rocking, almost metronomic precision undercuts some beautiful acoustic playing that closely resembles the great composer’s later works for piano and strings. That the track is also quite brilliantly titled Sexy M.F is a wonderfully witty touch. The track only last that couple of minutes though, which is a shame as I could have listened for a lot longer. Time (and Again) follows and we return to the themes of the first two pieces, loosely picked guitar parts backed by swooning clarinet lines, all very slow and seemingly going nowhere fast until again about halfway through the piece things change completely again and a vaguely percussive, buzzing, guitar-based secton appears. This part develops into short, gratingly abrasive passages for a minute or two before it all switches back to the way the track began, lulling clarinet and softly chiming guitar.

Just as the mood has slipped completely into this loose, wistful area of prettiness the track ends and the sixth piece, Ausflug starts up, quite literally, with the roar of a starting car and some kind of proggy metal guitar playing on the car stereo (apparently captured by Berhnard Gal according to the sleeve notes) with Stangl playing acoustically alongside in the studio. It is this sudden shift in texture and approach that makes the album so much more than just two talented guys playing a kind of easy listening improv together. As the car stereo cuts out we get the sound of birds twittering, with Fagaschinski playing alongside probably the nearest the album gets to a proper melody. Then it all changes again and swarms of incredibly well recorded vibraphone notes flow into the clarinet’s sustained notes. Fagaschinski’s tune is then picked up upon by Stangl and a brief shift into direct melody occurs and looking at the CD player I notice we somehow made it five minutes into the final track and the album is due to end any second. Again, the shift from the car, to the birds, to clarinet, vibes, guitar etc is seamless, extremely well composed. The real pleasure of this album is for me to be found in the way all of these sounds are effortlessly combined, often surprising but somehow also always sounding just right, really well chosen combinations.

Apart from being the kind of music that will sound great on balmy summers evenings due to its soft, gentle nature Musik – Ein Portat in Sehnsucht has a slightly unsettling, difficult edge to it throughout that keeps the listener on guard throughout. It is exceptionally well put together, a masterpiece in clever design and construction as much as it is about improvisation. It often veers towards areas I normally might not enjoy, but it does so in a way that is highly original and always inventive and engaging. It never strays far from being just damned beautiful as well, which is another plus point. What’s more nobody sings on it…;)

This one would have had a mention in my end of year round-up if I had listened to it in time. I consider myself surprised and impressed.