Satie, Erik / Svoboda, Mike

Phonométrie

Label: Wergo Country: Austria

"Erik Satie, the French musical poet and inventor of "furniture music," provoked fierce criticism from his contemporaries, but also inspired Mike Svoboda to this special homage. Close to the pulse of his time, Satie was a visionary with the courage to pursue slowness. Mike Svoboda takes over this idea by approaching Satie as a researcher of sound and time in space, as a philosopher and forerunner of Dada and John Cage. This new composer portrait, with joyfully contrasting music from Svoboda's pen, thus promises anything but music as fabric softener."-Wergo

"[...] Essentially, "Phonometrie" is the CD-version of the stage program "Der Phonometograph Erik Satie" and brings together a colourful trio of performers: Steffan Husson's accordeon has graced releases on some of the finest labels of the new music scene and been featured on recordings of Berio's "Sequenzas" or Karl-Heinz Stockhausen's "Tierkreis - Zodiac". Svoboda's own reputation, meanwhile, is equally impressive in the realms of the trombone, while a younger generation of contemporary artists is represented here by vocalist Anne-May Krüger, who furthermore plays the barrel organ, toy piano and melodica.

As to the motivations of their collaboration, there are too many to name. Svoboda elucidates several of them in the concise liner notes: To demonstrate the vital role of attaining a personal rapport with your instrument. To portray the trombone as an instrument of both great simplicity and inspiration. To depict Erik Satie as a composer with an outwardly humurous but intensely serious creativity and a scientific approach. To attain suprising timbres and forms within an unusual context. And, finally, to show how all of these different aims and objectives mutually influence and reinforce each other.

To arrive at a readable review of "Phonometrie", this is simply too much ground to cover. On the other hand, completeness in itself is not an interesting goal anyway. What matters is that Svoboda has managed to create a work which, even from only a couple of spins, suggests that all of these topics are not merely shortly touched upon but indeed covered in a deep and stimulating way. Already the track list is of colossal dimensions, spanning four booklet pages and a total of 55 pieces, almost exactly divvied up in half between Satie and Svoboda. Clocking in at 72 minutes, it is clear that some of the compositions are well under a minute in length, but not a single one can sensibly be characterised as a "sketch" or an "impromptu" - attentive and repeated listening is required.

As to finding an idiosyncratic approach to his instrument, Svoboda has certainly delivered an impressive statement here. He produces smoothed-out, heaveny floating resonances, storturous drones, upbeat rhythms, fluent melodies, pensive tones and imposing sheets of sound, positioning the Trombone as an almost percussive- and lead-instrument at the same time. As a performer, too, he is capable of integrating himself into the fold, shining as a soloist or leaving the limelight to others - "Phonometrie" is yet another proof of Hussong's charismatic and charming character and especially of the many talents of Anne-May Krüger, whose voice oscilates between beguiling purrs and slightly obscene fantasies in lines like "Your finery is secret, Oh sassy little sweet. My lively fair smokes the cigarette." [...]"-Tobias Fischer, Tokafi.com