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"HiGH ▀ iNTELLiGeNCE tRoLLS"
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a r t i s t : 2nd Outlet
t i t l e : Burnt Sienna
d a t e : 2004
l a b e l : Nuscope
g e n r e : Jazz
r l s. d a t e : Dec-2004
t r a c k s : 10
b i t r a t e : VBRkbps
s i z e : 105,9 MB
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Cor Fuhler - Hamburg Steinway D piano and preparations
Luc Houtkamp - tenor saxophone, computer-controlled live
electronics
Martin Blume - drums and percussion
Recorded in K÷ln, Germany on 26 May 2002 (tracks 2 and 6) and 9
May 2003 at the LOFT.
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Blue notes in and about 2nd Outlet`s music
Listening to the pre-master of this CD first time, I
immediately noticed 2nd Outlet's profound, almost magical sense
for timbre and color of sounds, and its role in developing a
musical piece with depth-quality. Although this is only one
side of the medal, this does not surprise, as each of the three
musicians individually has a marked sense for this particular
musical element.
In this regard, the first Outlet is drum-alchemist Martin
Blume, probably one of the most color-focused percussionists I
know. As a pianist, I would say that he plays drums with the
sustain pedal. This not only enables the sounds to sustain
longer; it also gives them color and surrounds the kernels of
sounds with fragrantly expanding clouds of their dispersed
particles even when the music becomes energetic, dynamic, and
dense. With a very fine sense for balance and degrees of light
and shade, he feeds the atmosphere with substantial ether,
which is certainly more than a carrier on which other musical
seeds can develop into living plants; with ghostly hands,
Martin almost imperceptibly drives musical situations forward.
I have always admired this subtle musical quality.
The second Outlet is Dutch tenor saxophonist Luc Houtkamp, who
enriches the trio not only by his wide variety of traditional
and extended reed techniques on his physical instrument, but
also by his virtually createdelectronic sound-textures. Luc's
musical approach has been profoundly imprinted by the early
experiences of the synth-revolution of the 60's and by his own
experiments with the EMS Putney in the 70's.Consequently, when
home computers started to proliferate in the 80's, he began to
work on software-based electronic music-making, learning and
using programming languages of the times such as FORTH and
LISP. Today, he writes his own programs in Max/MSP and Super
Collider, and focuses on extreme FM synthesis and live signal
processing. Using it alternatively with the saxophone, Luc's
computer-work on this recording provides remarkable
contributions to the trio's timbre extensions. Luc links the
acoustic piano and percussion signals to the computer's
"inlet," sending processed and digitalized color creations to
its "outlet".
The third Outlet, Cor Fuhler, is a beyond-all-musical-styles
partner with an extreme wide range of musical vocabularies
contributed here with care, clarity and a seemably never ending
source of imagination, giving him an amazing musical
flexibility. But, as much he is an inspired and inspiring
musician, he is also an astonishing inventor. When visiting his
home-studio, you would immediately notice that handicraft tools
have the same value to him as do musical instruments. Cor
constantly finds and has the hands for appropriate and often
ingenious simple practical solutions to build his own
sound-control extensions, perfectly made to measure for his
performances on inside piano, EMS Synth, and other instruments.
I see a certain relationship between these two qualities:
openness paired with a certain non-dogmatic consideration,
which enables him to discover the potentials of whatever
material is appropriate for his aims as musician or as
inventor.
2nd Outlet's music operates with two identities. One identity
is already rooted in the ensemble's instrumentation and, in
particular, in the trio's obviously intended inclinations not
to avoid, but rather to involve the idioms of the traditional
sounds of their acoustic instruments. These moments include
idiomatic musical developments like those in "Phthalocyanine
Green", "Alizarin Crimson", "Van Dyck Brown", and in the last
third of "Winsor Blue". These pieces display jazz or free-jazz
stereotypes such as pulse-driven drums, melodically phrased
saxophone, and intense cascades of piano clusters. But, not to
be mistaken, I am not at all inclined to categorize Burnt
Sienna into the "jazz-drawer." The trio's other identity, which
is represented in the clearly audible intention to
counterweight these idioms, integrates a strong focus on a
highly developed timbre work, which a German musicologist, such
as Professor Dr. Karlheinz Klopweisser (sorry,Glenn), would
characterize with the term Klangfarbenmelodik.
The resulting identity of 2nd Outlet is their finely balanced,
but not too serious, act of playing with both of their
identities. The traditional elements are on one hand, and the
timbre work is on the other. The traditional idioms are set
into the light of reflection, questioning their idiomatic
meanings, by letting them co-existing with very imaginative
timbre emanations, which you can hear across the entire disc in
multiple shades and shapes. Finally, not to forget to mention
the key-factor, which gives 2nd Outlet's music its high quality
of coherence, is the convergent way in which the three
musicians join to work out the transitions and juxtapositions
of these contrary components.
Thomas Lehn, Koln, GERMANY 4/14/04
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01-Winsor Blue [09:10]
02-Solferino Violet [07:47]
03-French Ultramarine [02:56]
04-Aurlian Yellow [05:40]
05-Cadmium Red [05:03]
06-Phthalocynine Green [04:58]
07-Raw Umber [06:22]
08-Alizarin Crimson [08:23]
09-Burnt Sienna [05:40]
10-Van Dyck Brown [05:33]
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61:32 min
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