Helilises mõttes on Lescalleet plaat ilmselt isegi kõige radikaalsem. Juba esimene lugu käib kõlaril üle jõu: sirin, undamine, sub-basside ja ülevõimenduste kumin. Samas vaimus ka jätkub: kõlari ragin ja prigin, valge müra (“Underscore”), pruun ja must analoogmüra, lintmaki klahvide klõmakad (“Clay Tapes”), lõputult väljaveniv hullumeelne meloodia (“Ineinendergreifen...”), nürimeelse kõlaga veider lisalugu - nii veider, et mu katkine kõlar, mis kunagi ühtki lugu läbi ei lase, selle laitmatult ette mängis. >Areen, 11.2003 this is jason lescalleet's first full length release of studio produced material. i have known jason's live tape-loopery for about four years and i deeply appreciate its visceral, human-organic quality and a gnarly expressiveness. with this background, 'mattresslessness' came as a shock. the album opens with a sine tone composition in the vainio/ikeda style. i wonder why would this artist, whom i consider to have a truly rare and original talent, stoop to aping established artists? the next track seems to continue the pattern with a repetitive click pattern in the nicolai style. the source of the third is harder to identify but it is also familiar: a noise collage, perhaps in the lanz style? and so it goes on. i was, to say the least, bewildered and a somewhat concerned. however, after some head and chin scratching i put together a theory to answer this. with each piece being of a different character, the album covers a lot of space, touching on several well-established areas of endeavor in music, sound and noise. and these areas all have their well established masters. the european and japanese masters, such as lopez, akita, tietchens, ikeda, behrens, nakajima et cetera, are able to turn out their quality set pieces with the apparent ease that hayden did his symphonies, mozart his concertos or elton john his songs. all these masters were established as such through a combination of talent, pr, funding, and consistency the aesthetic, political and financial aspects are all necessary; and it is fallacious to think that the former is sufficient. this cd sets out to challenge the essential authoritarianism inherent in this hierarchy. jason, armed only with the aesthetic, moves into, by my count, nine different domains, turns the handle of the respective digital machine and shows us how the respective set pieces are constructed. he then proceeds to transcend each, exceeding the achievements of the masters, moving beyond the respective area's confines by adding acutely personal expression and original brilliance. the incendiary subtext is that the masters are false gods and the hierarchy itself is a false intellectual product of broken rationale. i'm not suggesting that Jason is challenging the validity or value of anyone's work; i don't think he is. i think he is taking aim at the authoritarian logic, so prevalent in Western culture, that bestows master status on a few and pretender status on the rest. now then, with that theory of its intent in mind, how does the music sound? actually it sounds wonderful. the sine tone piece descends into a gorgeous eraserhead-sounding dreamscape, the metrical click patterns are transformed into scintillating diginoise only to emerge again fattened on a throbbing bed of bass, and the collage noise is run through the degenerative tape-loop process to make it good and sinister. my favorite piece, "ineinandergreifen 08 dezember 1912," has a melody that sounds like scraped or bowed metals on a 78 record that is then consumed by the tapes; degraded, subdued and eventually killed by an aging process to wrenching emotional effect. the whole album is immaculately turned out with excellent sound and tasteful packaging. jason lescalleet has exceeded himself. 'mattresslessness' is a major achievement: brilliant music and a valid political message. mattresslessness is jason lescalleets first full-length solo album after collaborations with nmpering and john hudak. it belongs to the same kind of experimental sound art as the music of francisco lopez, hudak and marc behrens, all the while remaining very different. despite a certain affiliation with the lowercase and microsound sub-styles of experimental music, hescalleet rarely sounds that cryptic. his music follows minimalist guidelines, but it relies for the most part on analog sound sources instead of computer treatments. reel-to-reel tape loops recording the silence of a room, found objects and crude electronic circuitry left on its own provide the basic materials for these compositions. pieces like "ambidextrous and half japanese and "ineinandergreifen are filled with a sense of purpose. they evolve, they take us somewhere, even though describing the destination can be hazardous and to a point meaningless. in terms of sound palette, lescalleets music could be compared to gert-jan prins and his fm modulations, but even prins studio work retains an improvised, spur-of-the-moment feel. lescalleets compositions are fully-formed. the first piece opens with painful sine waves before shifting to noises in the grey area instead of blinding white. the second, 14 minutes long, takes us on an ambient ride that is spellbinding despite its austerity. mattresslessness is not all hits and no misses. "underscore and "clay tapes are tough listens, they let the listener scavenge through silence to find scraps of sounds without achieving more than raising an eyebrow in the process. but this album depicts an artist with a clear vision of what his art should be here and now. thats why it deserves attention: to discover his unique ways and to see where he will go next. i saw jason lescalleet earlier this year playing a concert in a student building in bard college. it was a church like setting, and lescalleet who mostly facing the wall with his back to the audience, rumming about with some old reel to reel recorders, contact microphones and a guitar amplifier. the off and on wall of noise approach sounded quite impressive, certainly with the sparse light inside this small church and the rain pouring outside, but i was also thinking that this kind of ambient/musique concrete stuff sounded also a bit outdated. i knew some of his work with others (like john hudak, nmperign and greg kelley), but from the sparse information of those releases, it was hard to tell what kind of instruments he was using, if at all and therefore it would be good to see a solo release by him, and this is then his first cd. each track is dedicated to one or more persons, which is funny, because one starts to search for relations between this piece and to whom it is dedicated. the first piece is a pure sine wave experiment ranging all over the sonic spectrum, but it's uniform approach is not well spend on me. the other five tracks are what i remember of the concert: looped sounds maybe originating from contact microphones, analogue synthesizers or maybe shortwave radios. lescalleet plays around with dynamics a lot: things can go from rather soft to rather loud and it's the suprise element that is important for his music. i must say that even when i like this cd to some extent, i still think that it's a bit old styled ambient industrial/musique concrete music, but one that is better recorded (and in most cases also better worked out) then much of the old glut on cassettes. so, even with this idea of an old retro, still a nice done solo release by lescalleet. lescalleet delves into subtle sound areas, influenced by a variety of forms. «ambidextrous and half japanese» indicates this it plays around with clicks and sine waves a deep tone builds and collapses followed by a combination high and low that bounces in your head as you move, stepping up before seguing to a machine rumble and clicks, then low tones and a melody, finally a rainfalling sound dominating to the fade. a similar shifting through «underscore» in which a speckling crackle, running pop and fuzz play around, slows, rebuilds with a high tone then drop out. the tone returns with dry crackles and buzzes and a humm, drop again to a soft click that develops a rhythm, adds sine tones and pulsing wooble for a musical conclusion. a very soft pulsing in «clay tapes» develops into a tennis match, falls to a softness that crackles and patters, white noise and drips swap with a building machine-humm, clicks and a fading tone. (reading a little bit randomly, but when listened to it holds together well.) then «straight no chaser» layers rapid rising fallling building click tones through a rubbery tone, long tone and finally rapid fire tones shifting through stages. after the more glitchy stuff to date, «ineinandergreifen 08 dezember 1912» is a strange eerie song with a tonal melody loop, rainsticks and deeper tone through which a wavering tone becomes foregrounded, and for the next 14 minutes it seems to get slower and slower, without losing its structure. the final track, «general electric» starts softly with white noise and little blips then suddenly becomes a big hiss with metallic ringing and an internal pulsing tone, crackling and spattering. after a couple of minutes silence (Lescalleet plays around with the track start point to create some long silent negative counts between some tracks) an unnamed piece which is more musical a soft resonant note sequence (possibly sung) is layered over a vinyl lock groove crackle. a pleasant end to an album which (like a few here) crosses stylistic boundaries to build a varied and compelling work. after several notable collaborations (with john hudak ("figure 2", intransitive), ron lessard (due process "fin de la voix", rrr) and especially with greg kelley on the magnificent "forlorn green" on erstwhile), "mattresslessness" is jason lescalleet's first full-length solo album, and the fact that each of its tracks is dedicated to "people that i thought might appreciate the work" - for the most part, fellow musicians - ought not to be misinterpreted. lescalleet might namecheck kindred spirits such as francisco lopez, taylor deupree and achim wollscheid, but his own working methods are highly original. (that said, it's probably no coincidence that the noisiest piece on the disc, "straight no chaser" - presumably a reference to the undiluted punch of a slug of whisky rather than to the thelonious monk tune of the same name - is dedicated to lessard..) "most of the compositions began as works of [analog] tapeloops," comments lescalleet when pushed for details on his compositional technique, "but i hope the cd blurs the difference between my two approaches [analog and digital]". indeed it does - the crackles and fizzes from lescalleet's collection of lo-fi equipment (defective walkmen, trashed speakers..) are lovingly reworked with digital precision, but retains their distinctive analog warmth. "ineinandergreifen - 08 dezember 1912", with its eerie melodic fragments swirling over what sounds like the whoosh of an old wax cylinder until they're gradually enveloped in a cloud of dusty receding loops, is unlike anything you're likely to have heard, except perhaps (obliquely) basinski's "disintegration loops". (watch out for the ghost track, too.) compared to the chilly, glassy perfection of lopez or the pinprick lowercase intricacy of deupree, lescalleet's work has a tough, open-air feel to it, like shaving with cold steel in a mountain stream after a night in a tent. frequenze talvolta estreme, tattiche compositive intrise di un primitivismo esasperato che lambisce territori industriali e poi, minimi dettagli audio microscopici che si agitano come insetti lungo il percorso per giungere all'agognato silenzio che in realtà quando arriva si fatica a considerare oasi rassicurante tanto è carico di tensione. nach der im letzten jazz n more besprochenen herausragenden cd 'plurabelle' (jason kahn solo) trumpft kahns eigenes label 'cut' schon wieder mit einer ausgezeichneten veröffentlichung auf. 'mattresslessness' ist ohne frage ein äusserst radikales werk, welches vom hörer einiges an nerven und geduld abverlangt, dafür wird jedoch klangforschung auf höchstem niveau geboten. lescalleet arbeitet mit extremen frequenzen, welche sich nah an der hörgrenze bewegen; er bringt aber mit präzis gesetzten und in variationen wiederkehrenden rhythmischen elementen (wie im track 'underscore' einem der höhepunkte dieses albums) auch eine zeitliche struktur ins geschehen, welche einem die orientierung in den äusserst abstrakten und sehr originellen kompositionen erleichtert. i've been looking forward to hearing a solo-release by jason lescalleet ever since his amazing collaboration cd with john hudak was released. i had been following the works of hudak for years, and was really surprised with the collaboration as it was far more musical and subtle that i was used to. the raw soundloops and recordings hudak normally delivers were adapted and processed into a very flowing and minimal organic soundscape. Le premier album de Jason Lescalleet utilise pur sa part une vaste palette sonore, mêlant bandes magnétiques, électronique trafiquée et objets trouvés pour des images variées où des titres lentement déroulés côtoient des crépitements crispants. Totale incomunicabilità, assoluto estremismo, negazione di ogni contatto con l'ascoltatore. Lescalleet improvvisa con il nastro magnetico, oggetti disparati, aggeggi elettronici, passa da frequenze nude ad agglomerati elettrici, da interferenze fastidiose al silenzio, communicando solo il suo disagio interiore. Esistono, non ho dubbi, mondi così remoti, così lontani dalla luce, così opprimenti e disumani, e ogni tanto un nostro simile ce lo ricorda, forse perchè si possa apprezzare la vita che abbiamo quaggiù. Un disco enigmatico e disperto, che fa affiorare questi mondi spaventosi. Glitch come fiamme creptianti, brusio di publico, fruscii amplificati, frequenze minimali e scabre astrazioni digitali in una prova avara di spunti originali e spesso inutilmente prolissa. Alterna silenzi e laboriose improvvisazioni glitch-noise anche il primo album di Jason Lescalleet, Matresslessness, già collaboratore di sperimentatori come Hudak, Lopez e Wollscheid. A questi e ad altri sono dedicate e «ispirate» le singole tracce, in un opera comunque consigliabile solo ai fanatici del microwave estremo. Hochfrequenzspektraltests am Anfang von «Ambidextrous and Half Japanese» lasssen Schlimmes vermuten, aber Lescalleet löst sich dankenswerterweise wieder daraus und entwickelt ein beruhigend molliges Drone. «Underscore» läuft in die Glitch und Cut-Elektrostatik-Frickelei, ohne überzeugende resultate zu erzielen. «Clay Tapes» startet erst nach ca. 1 Minute Bedenkzeit mit zaghaftem Blubbern, das zu einem ausgewachsenen Hohlgeräuschdrone mutiert. «Straight No Chaser» ist hochgepitchter Minimal Techno im weitesten Sinn, «Ineinandergreife8 Dezember 1912» ist die längste und ausgereifteste Komposition; ein amorphes Soundgebilde in Moll. Auf «General Electric» wütet der Zahnarzt im Hochgeschwindigkeitsrausch, bevor er mit Kurzwellen-Cut-Ups zusammenprallt. Zum Finale bietet Lescalleet noch einen unbetitelten und ungenannten melancholischen Ein-Finger-am-Keyboard-Track, der deutlich zeigt, wo seine Stärken liegen; ruhige Drones und Soundscapes, auf die er sich konzentrieren sollte, anstatt eine zeitgenössische Compilation im Alleingang einzuspielen. Les nouvelles écoles des musiques concrète et post-industrielle nous le serinent depuis presque dix ans maintenant : le silence peut être une composante majeure de la musique tout court. Dans le sillon ultra-minimaliste des pionniers Bernhard Günter (textures du silence) et Francisco Lopez (espaces du silence), ils sont quelques uns aujourdhui à magnifier un propos paradoxal mais passionnant de lart sonore et à permuter les milles et unes possibilités de ce silence dans tous les sens, à épuiser ses natures structurelle et sonique, voire à le brandir comme un étendard. Parfois théorique -cest là que le silence nous fatigue-, parfois esthétique, cest là quil nous passionne. Now this is a strange one. Jason Lescallet appears to be paying homage to his friends and influences, via a series of musical essays that combine the attributes of two of the individuals in question in each track, not mixed together in to a cogent whole, but following instead hard upon each other's heels. 'Underscore', for instance, is a nine minute excursion that features Il est de ces personnes, qui préfèrent le réconfort de lanonymat à la notoriété, lombre plutôt que la lumière, dirons-nous. Par timidité, appréhension ou volonté affirmée, leur choix est de se tenir en retrait. I knew Jason from his past work with John Hudak: this is his first Het is zon naam die af en toe opduikt in verband met andere interessante gasten: Jason Lescalleet werkte al samen met Francisco Lopez, Achim Wollscheid en Thomas Ankersmit. Toch wel even nieuwsgierig naar dit debuutalbum dus. Ik hou wel van deze elektronische muziek, die uit duidelijke lagen bestaat. Een lage toon is hier de bas, de krasjes links en rechts zijn de slaggitaren, ruis komt van de bekkens, en die lange hoge toon S'il s'agit du premier album solo de Jason Lescalleet, il peut s'appuyer sur ses experériences passées en compagnie de Nmperign, Francisco López, Greg Kelley, Achim wollscheid, John Hudak... C'est docn après de nombreuses immersions dans les musiques lowercase qu'il propose plusieurs points de vue radicaux et poétiques sur ses extrémités sonores. Peu importe ses sources sans doute, elles sont décontextualisés au maximum, ne laissant que l'essence de leurs sons. C'est leur traitement qui est le plus admirable, forçant l'écoute en réduisant non pas le volume, mais le intensités spatiales communes. Comme diminués dans leur arborescence, les drones chargés d'embruns noircis rivalisent de beauté avec les sifflements passagers, les crépitements lolintains qui creusent l'horizon. Chaque morceau est dédié à un artiste (musicien, cinéaste...). Il faudra donc comprendre ces oeuvres minimales comme de véritables concentrés d'émotion, dont les liaisons appartiennent à 'auteur; mais peu importe puisqu'on sent le flot redessiné dans la course des électrons. Sonically Lescalleet's disk is the most radical of them all. Already the frst track is beyond the loudspeaker's strength: twitter, boom and the tingle of sub-bass and overamplification. Continues the same way: loudspeaker crackling and jarring, white noise (“Underscore”), brown and black analogue noise, the resounding of tape recorder keys (“Clay Tapes”), mad melody stretching infinitely (“Ineinendergreifen...”), obtusely sounding extra track - so weird, that my broken loudspeaker, otherways never letting a track through, played it faultlessly. |