October 14, 2019

  • Expanding the Boundaries of Sound

     

    Alone and Unalone
    Ensemble Paramirabo
    Ravello Records 8020
    Total Time:  62:11
    Recording:   ****/****
    Performance: ****/****

    An expansion of the sort of sound explorations of the likes of Crumb and others in the experimental avantegarde are at the forefront of this intense new release from the Canadian composer James O’Callaghan.  The four works here performed by the Montreal-based Ensemble Paramirabo, one of the leading groups showcasing contemporary music.  O’Callaghan is one of the composers whose work they have commissioned, or programmed.  From the sense of the music here, it would seem that the visual connection to what is being done would be as important as the sounds themselves.

    O’Callaghan’s music is an often austere blend of seemingly sporadic sounds and effects that stretch the boundaries of sound and even what one might consider “music.”  At the heart of these works is a real sense of drama and shape though that cuts like a knife through the sounds he is creating.  In the opening, Subject/Object (2016) the music sounds at first like a highly-stylized atonal Kabuki theater piece.  Specific decay and attack lends this sensibility to the music at first.  There are some moments where a particular line, usually in the piano, will give us a brief glimpse of tonality, just a quick thread that comes and goes rather quickly.  As O’Callaghan explores what transferring electronic sounds as written notation might then sound like acoustically, he manages to further intensify the music.  His music is noted for incorporating field sounds into the fabric of the work (something which is used in On notes to selves, 2016).    Sometimes that even means actual quotation, or manipulation of musical material as in Among Am A (2015) where a Charles Mingus tune is mined for musical material.   The title track concludes the album with an aural examination of our experience as listeners and people who are on are own, or who interact in a larger context.

    This is very visceral music that connects at a deep, and often intense level.  Those familiar with aleatoric and contemporary techniques employed by film composers in horror genres might sense a somewhat kindred dramatic quality in these pieces, perhaps along the lines of Joseph Bishara’s more experimental scores.  But in O’Callaghan’s case the  music demands we rethink how we approach sound and entrances the listener with the sheer variety of expression that he achieves.  Granted, it will not be for everyone.  Ensemble Paramirabo is really on display here for the sort of attention to sound and detail necessary to bring these sounds together so that they have some sense of shape and forward motion.  The overall sound of the album also aids this a bit with what feels like a warmer acoustic and equal spacing of the performers into a balanced sound picture.