Recently, [N:Q], the quartet of Nantes-based musicians including Keith Rowe, has taken to at least occasionally performing with nothing but radios. Though radio as an infinitely rich “color” among other instruments has a long history by now, presenting it as a sole sound source is a tricky affair. The “easy” thing to do would be to scavenge around on in-between wavelengths, allowing the static washes to commingle happily much like they might when melding with electronica or extended acoustical techniques in, um, regular ensembles. Much more difficult to utilize talk radio captures or snared music samples and have them somehow amount to more than the sum of their parts. It can certainly work, as demonstrated on [N: Q]’s Quebec disc from earlier this year (and, at least partially, the Rowe/Ottavi performance at 2005’s ErstQuake fest) but it presents a formidable challenge. As it begins to appear more and more often as a common item in the electro-acoustic arsenal, it’s fascinating to hear various methods of deployment.
Grundik Kasyansky makes substantial use of radio on two of the four tracks of “Light and Roundchair” but even on the other couple of pieces, his “feedback synthesizer” emulates short-wave static and between-stations modulations readily enough to fool you. Kasyansky does an excellent job of pacing himself throughout, unreeling a series of sounds in an unhurried manner, allowing each strand to be heard distinctly—a soft, repetitive flutter adjacent to a softer hum alongside irregular rattles near the beginning of “10.9.2005”, for instance. He’s fond of using the sort of low-high-low (or vice versa) pitch shift that one commonly associates with short-wave scans (near the onset of the second work, “Turnover”, e.g.). It’s interesting because, as a listener, you have to deal with the “recognizable” elements, attempting to ignore their normal connotations, and fit them into an abstract setting. Or not. My sense is that Kasyansky simply offers them as is, no apologies—deal with it. But, if so, this is done calmly not aggressively and I found myself encountering less and less difficulty reconciling the two worlds the more I listened. In fact, the loopiness of a track like “Turnover” begins to be read almost conversationally, as though you’re experiencing a whistling storyteller.
Radio enters as a prominent element on both the lengthy “Radio Dostoevsky FM” and the brief final track, “Radio Dostoevsky FM—The Holy Day Broadcast”. It serves to darken the tenor of the music in an effectively rich fashion, brooding beneath an array of sounds otherwise similar to those on the initial two pieces. Again, Kasyansky appears content to just place the contributions in position and allow the listener to work out the relationships for himself. A blurred speaking voice set within two or three varied hums adorned by the odd pop or welling of feedback. As before, a kind of calmness prevails, the lines unspooling leisurely, challenging one to discern any artifice in their placement. I gave up after a few spins and just enjoyed the wallow. I went back and forth a bit on one aspect, sometimes thinking that its 27 minutes might be too long, other times that it wasn’t long enough so I imagine it’s about right. Somewhere past its midpoint the talk becomes clearer and a political conversation revolving around religious fundamentalism is heard. It’s to the credit of Kasyansky’s conception that you’re able to hear it both in the context of social meaning and also as pure sound, flicking from one to the other as your conscience dictates though later on, when music filters into the mix, the “radio-ness” becomes a little distracting. The final cut is a short addendum to its predecessors, recapitulating several of the basic motifs.
“Light and Roundchair” is the first I’ve heard of Kasyansky’s work and gives good reasons to highly anticipate future music from him.
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