by Adrian on Tue Jan 04, 2011 6:10 am
So, I received two Erst discs a little while back.
One was MIMEO/John Tilbury, 'The hands of Caravaggio':
MIMEO is a large electro acoustic improvising ensemble, to my ears a softer (although they can make quite a noise) variant of Evan Parker's Electro-Acoustic Ensemble, or the Circulasione Totale Orchestra. These members improvise a backdrop for John Tilbury to work his magic against - but perversely Keith Rowe has asked one member of MIMEO to play 'inside piano', which he does, inside Tilbury's piano, making it difficult and sometimes impossible for John to do his pretty stuff. Reading this back I can see this is not the best way of putting it, but strangely enough something magical happens because of the randomness of Tilbury's contribution to the proceedings, thanks to Cor Fuhlers f-ing up his efforts; which is not exactly what is happening actually - both John and Cor are contributing, it's just that they are both doing it in a different way on the same instrument. All of this makes for a wonderful listen, and gives enough interesting material for each listen, while always holding something back for the next.
Which brings me to the second disc, Martin Siewert and Martin Brandlmayr, 'Too Beautiful to Burn'. I ordered this disc having listened to the snippets on the Erstwhile site, after Jon suggested this album to me, having read my comment on the 'Sleepwalkers' thread that I would love to hear more of Brandlmayr, particularly together with sinewaves and such. Which is exactly what this album is (bang on the money Jon - thanks!) - this is more understated affair (parts of it like an instrumental Sleepwalkers), and of the two I think the more open ended (Caravaggio is sometimes a bit dense) - absolutely mesmerizing and I can't recommend it highly enough.
I am going to have a listen to all my Erst discs in a little while and see which ones I totally recommend. This second one for sure, I already know.