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  Burkhard Beins / Mazen Kerbaj / Michael Vorfeld 
  Sawt Out
  (Herbal International) 


  
   review by Massimo Ricci
  2020-07-29
Burkhard Beins / Mazen Kerbaj / Michael Vorfeld: Sawt Out (Herbal International)

Comes a time when one learns to find a place inside the textural accumulation of an intense improvisation, in body and spirit, while relinquishing any judging intent. Seeking a connection at the deeper levels of psychoacoustic transfiguration corresponds to becoming the phenomenon itself. For that, we need instrumentalists whose experience overcomes the emission/consequence polarity. Musicians capable of remolding the acoustic matter on the spot, mashing the resulting substance to an "unrecognizable source" extent, drawing tangible abstraction from a clairvoyant instinct.

Two percussionists (Beins and Vorfeld) and a trumpet (Kerbaj) look to redefine the boundaries of timbral evolution across four tracks informed by a high rate of transcendental physicality. Attempting to discern "who plays what" in such a setting appears foolish. A trained ear is obviously able to recognize if there is breath behind something sounding like an analog synthesizer, or if the resonance of a cymbal is generated by manual rubbing, or a bow. And yet, the dynamic excursions are so unpredictable and rich in sonic data that joining the rational mayhem becomes a convenient solution to defy disorientation.

If you're just unable to swat away a buzzing analytical mind, segments like "Crossfeed" introduce firm gestures, blitzkriegs of indefinable tones, conflicts arising from the spur of the moment. Try dwelling on the piercing qualities of extreme frequencies; figuring out temporal intervals in a music theoretically devoid of subdivisions; looking beyond our limits via mercurial combinations of malleable idioms. You know, the gratifications of careful listening. One imagines Beins, Kerbaj and Vorfeld smiling in silent communion; between them, and with those staying dumbstruck in front of the speakers.







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