Ian William Craig
A Turn of Breath
5 August 2014
Recital
4 stars out of 5
Edmonton-born opera singer Ian William Craig employs layers
of looped magnetic tape hiss as the primary accompaniment to his voice on A Turn of Breath, one of the year’s most
heralded avant-garde releases. Craig’s method involves a microphone and a pair
of old reel to reel analogue tape recorders that are older than he is himself
(he’s about 34). The result is a sound at once as alienating as the Arctic cold and comforting as a warm fire (while being besieged
by the Arctic cold, of course).
On one of the album’s closest approximations to a
conventional song, “A Slight Grip, a Gentle Hold (Part 1),” Craig combines a
mournful soul-blues lament with what could pass as a field recording of a storm
of locusts. Picture something like The
Disintegration Loops featuring James Blake. Elsewhere, on “TEAC Poem,”
Craig’s voice is so distorted and mangled by the process that it sounds like
the pulses of a distant neutron star converted into sound. “Second Lens”
epitomizes the concept of the “beautiful accident”: a convergence of notes and
non-notes, of music intentional and non-intentional, that is impossible to
recreate because of the inherently destructive method of its genesis. All of it
adds up to an ambient record that is both captivating and exciting.
reviewed by Richard Krueger
No comments:
Post a Comment