Welcome to the select
and intimate world of Belgian minimalism.
Never heard of Belgian minimalism?
This is not entirely surprising, since
Wim Mertens has long been its lone
representative and one-man pioneer.
There may be others, but his name
is the only one cited in Wikipedia,
and is most likely to be the only
one which you may have come across
in your local record shop, wondered
briefly what it was all about, and
then passed on to something else.
In fact, the chances are you will
already have heard something by Wim
Mertens, since his music has occasionally
been plucked for use in some quite
well-known commercials. Talking of
being plucked, Mertens’ entire back
catalogue is now being re-released
from the Usura/les disques du crépuscule
label by EMI Classics, and this
first batch covers most of his work
from the 1980s.
Wim Mertens is both
a guitarist and pianist, and also
has a good countertenor voice. Having
studied Social and Political Science
and Musicology, his background is
one of depth as well as prolific compositional
productivity, some of it based on
experiences working in Belgian Radio.
Attracted to American Minimal Music
– also the title of a book he has
written on the subject, Mertens’ style
is in fact closer in kinship to that
of Michael Nyman, and while the big
names in American minimalism were
going glam and Nyman was casting his
spell of gentle Purcellian eccentricity
on Peter Greenaway’s films, Mertens
was experimenting with his own voice,
and anticipating by about 15 years
Nyman’s fall into melodic sentimentality
in The Piano with similar sounding
tracks such as Tourtour. I
can recall these albums being all
over the place when I arrived in The
Netherlands in 1987, but also recall
feeling each record being rather top-heavy
with also-ran numbers along with the
‘hits’ and the ‘decent stuff’. I was
intrigued to find out if there were
some new hidden diamonds among the
less well-known records, and if my
now more seasoned opinion of Mertens’
work from this period had changed.
Clairière
is a compilation of three early
releases by Mertens, and opens with
Ver-Veranderingen, although
his debut album was the electronic
experiment For amusement only.
With Ver-Veranderingen or
‘Distant Changes’, Mertens is already
shown toying with the soprano saxophone,
one of his signature sounds. Canonic
imitation, rhythmic chasing around
and some ostinato arpeggiation are
the principal features of this set
of tracks, exploring some musical
ideas with overdubbing of single instruments
or sounds. One has to recall that
the 1980s is a very distant period
when it comes to electronic techniques
in music, and the somewhat primitive
synthesizer and drum computer sounds
here, and later the thin sonic fingerprint
of the ubiquitous Yamaha DX7, are
a characteristic of many of these
albums. Even the wonder Atari ST computer
didn’t turn up until 1985: there is
a room called the ‘Atari Kamer’ in
the Royal Conservatoire of The Hague
to this day, though it is now full
of PowerMacs, and MacChicks. Those
of us who are ancient enough to remember
Space Invader games and the novelty
of computers which could speak will
experience a frisson of nostalgia
in For amusement only,
which begins in proto-Kraftwerk style
with a lonely voice saying ‘Insert
coin’. Other tracks mix in some of
the bangs, trills and thrills of computer
game sound effects, including the
thudding menace of those Invader
aliens. None of these tracks did a
great deal for me, but again, they
represent early attempts, and are
representative of a time in which
these kinds of boundaries were being
challenged by artists like Brian Eno
and others. At home – Not at
home is musically a little
more interesting, introducing some
of the chorale-like movement and intriguing
stylistic mixes in tracks like that
M, which has some Vangelis-like
touches, and combines the old and
new by throwing a nicely played harp
and violin into the bath of electronic
tricks. This album is notable for
having longer tracks which are allowed
time to develop, and the minimalist-pop
crossover is clearly audible in tracks
like At home and Not at
home, which has an Eno, or is
it Fripp sound-a-like bass. This is
one of those breakthrough records
which show much about how Mertens’
later work came about, but in terms
of real rewards I wouldn’t put it
top of the list.
With Usura is
also a compilation of two albums.
Struggle for pleasure is
one of Mertens’ ‘hit’ records, with
a number of tracks popping up again
on the soundtrack to Peter Greenaway’s
1987 film The Belly of an Architect.
The music is characterised by an easy
melodic style, accompanied by either
rumblingly swift or slow and atmospheric
arpeggio or ostinato accompaniments.
Mertens’ liking for long sustained
notes pops up in Gentleman of leisure,
in which the slow melodic lines arch
over a rhythmic ostinato bass – the
recorder sounds coming together to
create something which now sounds
quite ethnic. I remember finding out
how Mertens had created the weird
de-tuning effects in Bresque
using a Fostex digital delay machine,
slowing the wave effect to a minimum
so that the notes rise and fall slowly,
changing pitch in the same time as
the original, and then multi-tracking
the two together. Vergessen
has a different feel, being Mertens’
first album which includes pieces
conceived and written for ensemble,
something which this and his later
work shares with the Nyman Band style
of performing. The energy of a track
like Inergys contrasts with
the gentle atmosphere of Circular
breathing, which anticipates but
bears some comparison with the Harold
Budd/Brian Eno album ‘The Pearl’.
Grungy synth sounds remain a feature
of some of these pieces, and Mildly
skeeming sets up an artificial-sounding
ostinato bass over which the live
instruments can float in a sort of
canonic improvisation. This harmonic
basis is taken further by 4 mains,
an attractively lively piano track
which also pops up in belly of the
aforementioned Greenaway film. Multiple
is also a rather nice minimalist
concept, with baroque sounding vibrato-free
strings repeating and building different
layers on short phrases over a rocking
two note bass.
Maximizing the
Audience has its origins in a
theatrical production by Jan Fabre.
Mertens’ music seems ideal for film
or theatre, having little in the way
of real beginnings and endings, the
unfinished feel of the work lending
itself to advancing and receding action,
fading in and out or just ‘existing’
as an illustration of tableaux or
action. Circles begins with
a long introduction on bass clarinet,
just playing a chord sequence in arpeggio.
This extends through the clarinet
range, and is joined by slow-moving,
almost plainchant-like melody. Lir
is one of those simple melodic
inventions which could either drift
into new-age woolliness or be worked
up into a rabble-rousing rock anthem.
Here it is held within the confines
of a piano duo. The piano sound is
not particularly attractively recorded,
and the bashed-out opening notes of
the title track emphasise this. The
Nymanesque effect of the fifths in
the repeated bass is reinforced with
a soprano voice over the top. Whisper
Me provides welcome contrast with
the introduction of some pleasant
string ensemble writing, but for me
at over 18 minutes for three of the
five tracks on this album most of
the works here outstay their no doubt
otherwise highly functional welcome.
The long notes and
soprano saxophone return with the
opening track of If I Can from
Sonorous Resonances. Unison
lines and an absolute paring down
of material is taken further in Limes,
making it something of a tough nut
for casual listening. Some tracks,
such as The Ship, have a rolling
harmonic content, but also have an
empty feel caused by the predominant
use of open fifth intervals. The lines
are fragmented in the shorter work
for instrumental trio Tiresias,
but by now the static nature of the
music is beginning to take its toll.
Techniques employed by Mertens’ fellow
countryman Karel Goeyvaerts in his
‘Litanies’ – a kind of isolated joining
of disparate elements – appears in
Stretti. Counting numbers in
Dutch, adding some medieval soprano
saxophones, a rising piano figure
and singing voices later on doesn’t
provide the content or sense of development
which makes Goeyvaerts’ work so strong,
and while not unattractive, the static,
rather sketchy nature of the piece
is ultimately frustrating. The National
radio choir has an a capella role
in For Soothsay, which is nice
enough but at nearly 13 minutes of
the same rather banal thing was just
too long to hold my interest. To
keep them from falling has an
unfortunate cheap-sounding buzzy synthesizer
basis, but returns more to more familiar
minimalist territory, reminding me
of Philip Glass – ‘Einstein on the
Beach’. Instrumental Songs
is set of pieces for solo soprano
saxophone. Writing for a single solo
voice is hard enough, and Mertens
sticks to his idiom and remains recognisable
in the music, as well as in the production.
This phases the instrument, presumably
to give it a richer feel; much as
they did with Kylie Minogue’s voice
not so many years later. I am full
of admiration for the playing and
invention on this recording, but the
cumulative effect is rather like being
stuck in a lift with a mad busker.
I’m afraid I won’t be listening to
it much, if at all.
Clever solo performing
is a feature of A man of no fortune,
and with a name to come, with
Wim Mertens playing piano and singing.
Mertens’ voice is a fairly light countertenor,
and he can create some gorgeously
expressive lines over the often minimal/ostinato
piano accompaniments. This kind of
music sails dangerously close to becoming
drippily sentimental, but when you
know and understand Mertens’ idiom
and style it is easy to see where
this kind of performing creativity
fits into his work in general. There
are more lively numbers among the
more atmospheric songs: Hirose
opens with a more bouncy feel,
and You See has a really rousing
piano part, only maintaining its remarkable
intensity however for the two minute
opening of a piece of nearly 15 minutes
duration - one which leaves you begging
for a modulation through the long
middle section, or anywhere else for
that matter. The grand gestures of
Naviamente deserve a mention,
but by the end of the record everything
is beginning to sound a bit samey.
With The Belly
of an Architect I had the opportunity
to compare the EMI re-release with
an original disc, and am happy to
report that there is no appreciable
difference between the two. There
are some minor changes in the design
on the booklet cover, but the information
inside still tells us that the gorgeously
disturbing Glenn Branca tracks were
conducted by Paul Daniel with the
London Sinfonietta. Branca creates
a warm bath of sliding string sounds
in Augustus which make for
highly charged film music. As previously
mentioned, some of the tracks on this
disc already appear on the With
Usura CD, but there are some
spectacular new numbers, like the
mechanical, almost player-piano like
arpeggios of The Aural Trick.
As also previously mentioned, many
of Mertens’ pieces sound like film-music
tracks anyway, so little extras like
Flank by flank and Figs
go well enough with the other
pieces, if they are ultimately disposable
as stand-alone works. Branca’s other
contribution, the penultimate character
list, is a bit thin, though with plenty
of appropriate menace. Over the years
I’ve come to see this as a CD single,
taking the priceless Augustus,
and having the rest along as bonus
tracks.
Educes Me,
as the booklet photo indicates, has
a harp among its principal instruments,
here played by Keiko Kusaka and Anne
Van Den Troost. This is a gentle set
of pieces with melodic expressiveness
at its heart. No Plans no Projects
has a wonderfully recessed, pianissimo
instrumental setting in the beginning,
and could almost be a movement from
Fauré’s ‘Requiem’. Turning
up the volume to hear what is going
on will however give cause for regret,
as a piercingly ugly synthesizer takes
over, which to my mind is a great
shame. When the Line grows Thick
has some fun bass clarinet figures
to start with, and plenty of funky
energy throughout. Usura is
a short vocal a capella number in
two sections, a sort of new-age barbershop.
The title track is 15 minutes of two
lonely harp players who seem to have
only one finger on each hand, and
one way of plucking the strings. I
do love the harp, and this is no doubt
all very profound and meaningful,
but aside from appreciating the main
theme, some contrapuntal connections
and the hocketing effect I fear I
left my patience for this kind of
thing back in 1987.
After Virtue is
another piano solo with occasional
voice, each title being a virtue,
though missing out Fortitude as one
of the cardinal ones. The piano sound
has a hefty dose of resonance added
to the sound, which may help a bit
with the atmosphere but has some drawbacks
in pulsing, a nasty left/right seesaw,
and cluttering up a little on more
intense passages. There are some dramatic
moments here, and Mertens’ playing
verges on the Keith Jarrett jazz style
from time to time. I had hopes that
the final track Charity would
break into Tom Lehrer’s ‘Pollution’,
but it never happened. Others have
moaned at me when longing for dissonance
or ‘something else’ with albums like
this, and while I’m not against a
nice dose of diatonic harmony there
are times when you just need a bit
of spice to go with all that boiled
veg. There is plenty of character
in the music and in the playing on
this album, and indeed one or two
suspensions: but as ‘good’ as it is
we already know ‘good’ as an accepted
boundary, so unless this is intended
for stylish background sounds for
an all-white restaurant then I don’t
see it flying very far.
My favourite album
in this mountain of Mertens is the
most recent from this set, Motives
for Writing, which is a useful
double-entendre title for literary
folk who like a brain-teaser. The
‘Mertens Band’ sound is closest to
Nyman here, with tuba and plenty of
winds. The opening of Watch! sounds
a bit like your local outdoor marching
band, and there are some joyous hocket
effects. The Personell Changes
opens with and is plagued by that
nasty buzzy synth sound which sounds
like a petulant child sat in the middle
of the band with a cheap Casio – the
one whose dad paid for the hire of
the hall, but the piece turns into
a good song on the whole. Paying
for Love is a majestic, dolorous
work with arching melodies, unusually
on bassoon, over repeated notes in
chorale on saxophones – a significant
part of the recording being the disciplined
breathing of the players. I suspect
the function of that strange added-on
up-beat ending is to balance the slow
conclusion to the other long track
on this disc, Words on the Page,
but I may be entirely wrong. No
Testament is one of those tracks
I found myself playing more frequently
than is good for me: the infectiousness
of its harmonies, the busy winds over
the top, a groovy military snare drum
and a nice build-up of energy and
tension make for a cracking, compact
four minutes. Words on the Page
is one of those stylistic enigmas
which seems able to mix baroque harmonies
and a classical sounding wind ensemble
sound with a sprinkling of modernism
in the improbable restless movement
of the strings. The piece continues
as a kind of set of variations on
a repeated harmonic sequence, the
rhythms and melodic patterns scattering
improvisatory asymmetrical patterns
over and under the passacaglia. Another
ground bass concludes the CD in The
Whole, an uplifting little piece
with piccolo and high clarinet singing
out over the richly layered accompaniment,
almost in the character of an Irish
folk tune.
Despite my carping
here and there, I’ve enjoyed surveying
these newly re-released recordings.
For sure, the production is more often
pop-album standard than classical.
Some of the piano recording fares
worst, in some cases from some rather
ragged analogue tape wow, tinny sound
or an unfortunate bloom of artificial
resonance – the qualities of which
weren’t up to much in the 1980s. Synthesizers
also left much to be desired in this
period, and the combination of these
against ‘live’ instruments only serves
to throw their limitations into greater
light. The technical drawbacks aside,
much of Mertens’ work in this period
still has an unfinished quality –
some pieces sounding a little like
an excerpt which can be faded in and
out at will. The ideas are good and
often ahead of their time, often holding
a strange fascination. The proportions
are however sometimes hard to grasp,
with some pieces, and some entire
albums seeming to wander rather aimlessly,
revelling in nice or not-so nice sounds,
but seeming to leave the listener
out of the equation somewhat. The
short playing times reflect vinyl
origins, but are often about as much
as you will want at one sitting. Motives
for Writing shows the way for
more fulfilling later albums such
as Shot and Echo, so I for
one will be looking forward to seeing
which records EMI add to their catalogue
next.
Dominy Clements
