The Squid's Ear
Writing about unusual and experimental music,
following the activities of Squidco...
  •  •  •     Join Our Mailing List!



The Squid's Ear
Facebook: Squidco Sales

Heard In

Reviews of artist releases:
cd's, books, magazines, &c.


  Jean-Luc Guionnet / Eric La Casa / Philip Samartzis 
  Stray Shafts Of Sunlight
  (Swarming) 


  
   review by Massimo Ricci
  2014-02-04
Jean-Luc Guionnet / Eric La Casa / Philip Samartzis: Stray Shafts Of Sunlight (Swarming)

With regard to its precursor Soleil D'Artifice on this same label, the second disc by this French/Australian troika deals more often with feeble illumination and unhealthy urgency — spelled "sense of oppression" — in spite of its title. The mixing of live sets from 2007 in Germany, Italy and France was performed five years later by La Casa, who perhaps should be credited as the effective "composer" in this case.

The spaces may be large and barren, but they're almost never completely empty. The fixed rates of the electronic frequencies integrate the reflections of Guionnet's saxophone innards for brief segments in the first movement, then remain alone in between unkind hums and whirs. The reedist's "human" component is nevertheless cold-blooded, to a point of near-equivalence with the sounds released by the machines. In the middle track, an extensive voyage where industrialized starkness and distant memories commingle inside massive mutations, we found ourselves swept over by the psychological powerfulness of selected layers. Intelligently, faraway reverberations of "regular" musicality — a radio, a jazz guitar played by someone, a woman intoning "La Vie En Rose", quick-paced heels in a nocturnal urban landscape — are thrown in sparsely to assure that we're still in the corporeal variant. Yet the forward-looking arrangement appears as masterfully glacial, no remorse shown for the ear-perking listener. The closing slice begins with pressurized sonorities hardly grazed by a series of unsteady reed pitches, and stays in the same territories: indiscernible under-rhythms, aerial views of utter desolation, sudden quacks, percussive surges, cryptic discharges, something running within the rusty tubes of a decaying bathroom; it might be residual waters, or cockroaches, or the outset of our mind's disintegration process.

Thought-provoking material, to say the least. These gentlemen possess a unique capability of turning a mixture of normal incidents and adroit manipulations into recordings that make one ponder deeply about the less than secondary role we've been given as (hypothetically) sentient creatures, the weakest links in the chain of recurrent misconception. Fortunately, the possibility exists to acquire what's truly essential from the only trustworthy educator: sound.





Comments and Feedback:



The Squid's Ear presents
reviews about releases
sold at Squidco.com
written by
independent writers.

Squidco

Recent Selections @ Squidco:


Berlin Art Quartet (
Schubert /
Bauer /
Muller /
Bruggemann):
Live At MIM
(Unisono Records)



Jimmy Lyons:
Rivbea Live! Series,
Volume 3
(NoBusiness)



Erik Klinga:
Elusive Shimmer
(thanatosis produktion)



Das B (
Mazen Kerbaj /
Mike Majkowski /
Magda Mayas /
Tony Buck):
Love
(thanatosis produktion /
Corbett Vs Dempsey)



Brass Clouds:
Escape Vessels
(Bathysphere Records)



Fire! Orchestra:
Echoes
[2 CDs]
(Rune Grammofon)



Sophie Agnel /
John Edwards /
Steve Noble:
Three On A Match
(Otoroku)



Satoko Fujii
This is It! (
w/
Natsuki Tamura /
Takashi Itani):
Message
(Libra)



Sorry For Laughing (
G. Whitlow /
M. Bates /
Dave-Id /
E. Ka-Spel):
Rain Flowers
[2 CDS]
(Klanggalerie)



New Origin (
feat. Christoph Rocher /
Joe Fonda /
Harvey Sorge):
The Poet Walks
(Listen! Foundation (
Fundacja Sluchaj!))



Simon Nabatov:
Agree to Disagree
(Listen! Foundation (
Fundacja Sluchaj!))



Von Schlippenbach, Alexander /
Barry Altschul Quartet w/
Joe Fonda &
Rudi Mahal:
Free Flow
[2 CDs]
(Listen! Foundation (
Fundacja Sluchaj!))



Thelonious Monk with
Sonny Rollins:
1953 To 1957
Revisited
(ezz-thetics by
Hat Hut Records
Ltd)



Daniel Carter /
Ayumi Ishito /
George Draguns /
Ed Wilcox:
Makeshift Spirituals
(577 Records)



Kory Reeder:
Homestead
(Another Timbre)



John Cage:
Chamber Works 1943-1951
(Another Timbre)



Josh Sinton:
Couloir &
Book Of Practitioners
Vol. 2
Book "W"
[2 CDs]
(FiP recordings)



Elliott Sharp /
Scott Fields:
Reimsi Geara
(Relative Pitch)



KnCurrent (
Brennan /
Cooper-Moore /
Davis /
Hwang):
KnCurrent
(Deep Dish)



Biota:
Measured Not Found
(Recommended Records)







Squidco
Click here to
advertise with
The Squid's Ear






The Squid's Ear pays its writers.
Interested in becoming a reviewer?




The Squid's Ear is the companion magazine to the online music shop Squidco !


  Copyright © Squidco. All rights reserved. Trademarks. (38783)