So a very late post tonight. My day didn’t quite follow the course I had originally planned for it really. Early this morning, instead of writing blog posts I ended up knocking down a porch (don’t ask…) and then this evening I went out for a (to be honest pretty horrible) meal but in wonderful company. So I only got around to listening at about eleven o’clock tonight, but fortunately to an album I have already played quite a bit.

The disc in question is Teem, the recent duo disc by Olivia Block and Kyle Bruckmann on the either/OAR off shoot of the excellent and/OAR label. I like the word Teem, its one of those that just sounds nice when you say it… Strange that this disc should appear at almost the same time as Teeming, a different CD that I reviewed here. Teem is also Meet spelt backwards, which seems a fitting title for a disc of this type.

Before describing the music, some thoughts about how it was made. It appears that the four pieces here were put together over a period of five years, beginning back in 2003, soon after Bruckmann had contributed to Block’s Pure Gaze album. The two musicians live on opposite sides of the USA now, so with the exception of a recording session together in 2008 that produced material for two of the tracks, the majority of the music here was put together gradually by exchange of sound files. Both musicians are credited with mixing and editing, plus a long list of other instruments and processes, with both contributing field recordings, Block including piano and reed organ, and Bruckmann working with oboe, English horn, accordion and suona (whatever one of those might be). The truth is then, that given the mix of instrumentation and the method of production, its impossible to tell who is responsible for what, which adds a kind of mysterious quality to the music.

So what does it sound like? Well it varies quite a bit, but is generally a massed forest of high pitched acoustic sounds (oboe, horn, reed organ??) and hissing, crackling splutters that vary between what sounds like popcorn cooking and assorted small metallic items being thrown down a rubber staircase. The opening piece, titled I though also has an eerie melodic line threading through it, courtesy of the oboe I believe, that has a kind of old English folky feel to it, slow and slightly unnerving in its melancholy sat behind the pops and crackles. I like this piece a lot, but it has a sort of Oliver Postgate (sorry to non-English readers) feel to it, a kind of other-worldly sensation.

II, although retaining many of the same sounds kicks off in completely different fashion, a wall of high pitched wailing from assorted instruments hits you, giving way after thirty seconds or so to a vaguely familiar clanking and knocking recording that gently turns over behind small puffs and scribbles from one of Bruckmann’s wind instruments or another. Here the music takes on more of a constructed, musique concrete feel for a while, but the sounds all feel organic, piano strikes, whispery tones and more mechanical, clockwork patterns until this all gives way to airy reeds and some kind of industrial sounding field recording. The track then just keeps evolving and reinventing itself  like this for its seventeen minute duration. This piece is great, wonderfully balanced, with a great ear for keeping sounds for just long enough before cutting them dead and replacing them with something altogether different and yet somehow complimentary. As with the Seth Nehil disc I reviewed last night (Nehil is another that has collaborated with Block quite a bit) the composition here sounds carefully considered. Given that it has taken five years for the music to progress to its finished state I think I’m probably safe in this assumption!

The third piece follows in a similar vein, but things grow into swells much more easily, building to an almighty climax of high wailing tones and rattling field recordings ten minutes in, only to shatter into a gradually subsiding percussive clatter that peters out over the last minute of the track. The closing IV is gentler, softer, made up mainly of layered acoustic tones, mostly reeds but who knows what else. Its shorter at a little over seven minutes and coupled with the five minute long opening track forms a kind of bookend for the album, a gradual winding down from the intensities of the middle two pieces.

This album is yet another great example of how improvisational techniques, when combined with careful, collaborative composition over time can result in really strong, refined musical statements. Like the Korber/Wehowsky disc from early this year this is a great example of two very talented, experienced musicians taking their time and using their experiences in an improvised setting to produce music of this kind. A fine release.

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After a few weeks/months without too many gigs happening that I was able to make it along to (To be honest I’ve had to miss a few I would have loved to have attended, but work has been restrictive of late) a few great looking gigs are to occur over the remaining months of this year. First up, John Tilbury is to play at the BBC Proms on August 20th, alongside the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra conducted by Ivan Volkov, performing the same Cardew, Cage, Skempton and Feldman pieces they previously played together up in Glasgow. This time I’ll be there- really looking forward to this one, so great to see JT getting some mainstream recognition. Then on a related note it would appear that Tilbury may well be playing at least one (Maybe two? not sure yet) concerts together with Keith Rowe in paris just before Christmas. Getting to this one may prove too difficult for me given the timing and my dayjob, but I will do what I can. Also Keith Rowe has been named amongst this year’s Cut ‘n Splice Festival line up, apparently putting together a line-up of “seasoned radio performers” to interpret some of Earle Brown’s graphic scores. Should be great. That one should happen in November, alongside the Huddersfield Festival, which this year will apparently include a concert involving Michael Duch, John Tilbury again and Rhodri Davies, (who is fluent in Welsh) amongst the bill. Should be a fine few months then!

Eagle-eyed readers will notice that the Gig Calendar has disappeared from this site. This is because it didn’t work properly since the site’s redesign, but it will return soon in a new format that will allow musicians and promoters to add concerts themselves rather than have to wait for me or my trusty team of glamorous assistants to post them up. Hopefully then it should become a more useful resource.