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Confluence
by “The Circular Ruins” (Anthony Paul Kerby)
In the Bubble Music, 2002
http://www.virunis.com
From the understated, tasteful design of the CD label, with its
pattern-from-nature photo and its sandy monochrome, you would think that
this album would be yet another dose of familiar “desert spacemusic” with
its distant bongo drums, clinking stones, rattles, and floating chords.
Well, surprise it’s nothing like that. Instead, you’ll want to take out
your German-techno dictionary to appreciate this hard-edged set of trancey
electronic rhythm pieces. The usual graphics for this are blurred, garish
pictures of neon-lit cities at night with indecipherable text, which the
producers have fortunately avoided. “The Circular Ruins” title comes from a
story by the Argentinian surrealist writer Jorge Luis Borges, and the liner
notes contain quotes from Borges and e.e.cummings. An erudite presentation,
for sure.
Anthony Paul Kerby, one of the talented electronic set of “In the Bubble”
which also includes “Vir Unis” (John Strate-Hootman), the “Ma Ja Le” duo and
James Johnson, concentrates on rhythm, all of it electronic. Melodic
elements are minimalized, though they are present enough to give the work
structure. He layers the held notes and the synthesized rhythms with lots of
electronic squeals, hisses, modified voice samples, special effects, and
environmental sounds.
My choice for best cut on the album is the mind-warping track 4,
“Cathedral.” This piece of trancery mixes a simulated “pipe-organ” sound in
minor, “gothic” tones with lines of metallic drones and whines, then runs
it alongside a relentless electronic beat that stays throughout the 17
minutes of the piece. What makes this more interesting than the usual
Euro-techno drone piece is that Kerby chooses to mix in bizarre little bits
of environmental sound, for instance the cheerful song of a house wren. It’s
strange and unnerving to hear the pastoral sounds of splashing water and
chirping birds alongside the sterile, mechanical sounds of the synthesizers.
It makes the piece a weird mixture of the cheerful and the ominous.
No, pretty desert ambient music this ain’t. Comfort and contemplation are
not found in the Circular Ruins. But if you have the adventurous taste to
listen to edgy, ironic, urban, hard-driving, abstract sound, this is
something for you.
Hannah M.G. Shapero
5/5/02
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