Liondialer - live on recording and at Sound of Mu
Click image for more pictures
Cello-based, electronic improvised music from two duos
Mem1 is Mark and Laura Cetilia, is a duo in musical terms as well as in life, and their live performance this Sunday evening at Sound of Mu was one of great interplay; Mark’s electronic, glitchy sound palettes laying out the backing sounds – like a sonic scenography – in which Laura’s carefully deliberated cello-playing provided the protagonist of the scene – conjuring up light, airy strings with the hoarse cello qualities sounding both noisy and harmonious. The whole performance proceeded in a slow and steady pace, nice and soothing rhythms flowing out with lulling qualities and the coordination between the two musicians coming off well concerted. Due to the use of strings, associations were immediately drawn to works of their peers like Richard Skelton, Julien Neto, Deaf Center and Svarte Greiner, and like a more modern classically-sounding Celer.
Moving on to Liondialer – and the thoughts around improvisation that arose after this evening – it seems to have become somewhat a tradition these days that electronic music concerts entail a variable factor of improvisation – which in some cases can be good and other cases lead to disappointment. The latter is usually the case if improvisation seems to be the result of lack of preparation – which may seem exactly the counter of improvisation – but on the other hand, improvisation would require some insight into each others’ techniques and approaches to music-making, otherwise the result may seem less of a collaborative improvisation and more like two or more musicians throwing sounds into a common fray and just seeing where it takes them.
Maybe this lacklustre performance was partly due to the less than comic venue at Sound of Mu on last night’s performance – a hopelessly large banana cardboard box occupying the center of the room and effectively splitting the already small venue into two smaller halves – with limited visibility, limited floor space for seating and generally a cramped atmosphere. Or maybe it was the result of two brilliant musicians not having had enough time to become accustomed to each others’ styles yet in a live setting – again, a theory which might need to be dispelled as quickly as its proposed due to the second feature of this review – namely the group’s new live (ed. not a tour edition as previously stated – corrected after feedback from White Box) album Liondialer Live which features live recordings of their sets across various venues. Then again, that fact may be indicative of a variable performance in which brief moments of excellence shine through as memorable for album release and other more chaotic, improvised moments are deemed less suitable for preservation.
Rather than dwell on last evening’s concert, then, we focus on the evocative album based on Liondialer live in performance – a slimmed down release on White Box which sees Danny Saul and Greg Haines captured on “tape” in their moments of sheer brilliance – the Liondialer I was anticipating highly to see live in concert – the pairing of cello and electric/acoustic guitar and laptop processing for electronics and other instrumentation to back the two lead instruments. Saki is a haunting piece languishing in a receding light; Saul’s guitar is fleeting and wailing complemented by Haines’ strings twisted to siren-like sounds. The whole piece as such very moving and emotional. Then follows Green Room – a 2-part composition split up and in reverse on record by an intervening track, Bay Horse which is yet another lofty composition with sparsely interspersed guitar chords, scraping strings and ambulating electronic sounds in the background and the muffled voices of audience in the room caught on tape. Saul’s thought-provoking guitar chords are reminiscent of Ry Cooder, Christopher Willits and Mark Templeton to name a few – slow, lingering harmonies set in motion, and as always Haines’ strings twist and turn and feel like they’re wrung out with great physical exertion without sounding too strained. Highlights of the record comes with Green Room 1 which rounds off in little over 8 minutes and is a sluggish, wailing piece – Haines’ strings feel like the subsea sonar of whales. Halfway in, nervous strings scatter across the melody and long-stretched tones from Saul’s guitar complete the picture of something longing. But it’s the transition from this song, with chiming horns leading into the shorter Ladybarn that blows me away – the repetitive piano melody set to Saul’s reverberating, electric guitar tones. In conclusion Music Box is a noisy piece where guitar, strings and tinkering bells are broken down into bleeding masses of static and white noise which comes in bursts and dillutes most traces of melody, and Rarefish wraps up with some delicate acoustic guitar chords and fragile, scraped strings. For being a live recording it sounds very much like a studio album and has your ears pricked to attention – so it was disappointing to catch the duo on an “off-day” knowing their potential. But I’m likely to give Liondialer benefit of the doubt this time and anticipate their first studio recording.
More information here:
Mem1
Mem1 at myspace
Liondialer at myspace
Miasmah
White Box label
White Box label blog
