Karkowski, Zbigniew / Furudate, Tetsuo

World As Will III

Label: Sub Rosa Country: Belgium

""Mergence", "Below the demarcation" and "Mix white" conclude the World As Will project, started ten years ago, the result of a collaboration between Zbigniew Karkowski and Tetsuo Furudate. The first piece arises from an infrabass ocean to crudely develop through a series of distant explosions, percussive energy, and short open cuts. As a whole, the structure is reminiscent of a slow crawling process. Tremors follow (with Karkowski, something always ends up shaking). For me, the second piece is both the imprint and the development of the first one. Furudate's contribution to this joint venture is also easier to grasp. A menace passes by, and we are glad to remain hidden in our hole, letting the beast move along in short bursts (it must be rusty, metallic, torn, scorched). Commissioned and performed by the Berlin-based ensemble Zeitkratzer, the third piece provides a cathartic and tragic conclusion, achieving what could be called a sketch of Chaos.

It can be hard for musicians to read the prose of people who think they are entitled to write about this very intimate experience : listening to music. In fact, writing about music is a wager you cannot really win. What can you base your writings on ? Your personal impressions ? Your understanding of the work? At least try to describe the music ? What is being revealed when our mind sticks to the materiality of sound ? Obviously, conveying one's personal experience is the difficult aspect.

The only thing I ever wrote about Karkowski's music is this: As many of Karkowski's pieces, this is a highly delicate yet physical work, which can be seen as an ode to loudspeakers. This sentence applied to "Execution of Intelligence" (2004), a piece produced for Volume 3 of the Anthology of Noise and Electronic Music. However, I won't get away with this sole formula this time around."-Sub Rosa