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  Gerry Hemingway/Thomas Lehn (Tom & Gerry) 
  Kinetics
  (Auricle Records) 


  
   review by Jeph Jerman
  2009-02-19
Gerry Hemingway/Thomas Lehn (Tom & Gerry): Kinetics (Auricle Records)

This is the third recording by this duo, recorded on a multi-track machine during concerts in Austria, Germany and France between 2003 and 2006. The recordings were edited and sequenced by Lehn and Hemingway, "converting them into an audio experience".

While not excessively quiet, the first 4 tracks stick to a murmuring level, creating slight tension and dialogue between the players without big shifts in amplitude. "Patina" finds Hemingway playing a simple rhythmic pattern on cymbals while Lehn fits a myriad of sound textures into it. Lehn's analogue synthesis takes on a wide variety of tones, though often, as in the beginning of "Verdigris" it resembles breathy sax tones. "Mould" begins with quiet drum taps, cymbals and boingy spring reverb sounds, and builds slightly to layers of drone and quietly hammered metal. Here Lehn conjures the sound of an upright bass, and at times one could swear that there are more than two people making this music.

Everything builds slowly toward the last track "Maquette", which means a small model or study in three dimensions for either a sculptural or architectural project, where all hell finally breaks loose as single cymbal taps and small thuds are abetted by Lehn's faint bird whistles and electro-crunches. This continues as before, building louder with each pass, until around the 22 minute mark where Lehn gathers a squad of helicopters and Hemingway starts rocking out in a stuttering way that gains complexity and mass as the remaining minutes tick by. Hemingway's kit sounds beautiful, and Lehn squawks and buzzes, eventually letting out foghorn blasts and frying circuit sounds. It's a long time in coming, but what a finish!





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