Scott MILLER (with Carla REES)
Devices and Desires
Anterior/Interior (2011) [8:10]
Beauty is Eternity Gazing in a Mirror (2011) [9:26]
Ommagio a 1961 (2009) [11:13]
bending reed (2011) [6:37]
Seriously, This is a Commitment (2011) [13:00]
haiku, interrupted (2009) [7:30]
Carla Rees (quartertone C flute)
Scott Miller (electronics)
rec. 24 November 2011, Royal College of Music Recording
Studios,
London
RARESCALE RECORDS RR004 [55:41]
If you read the biographies for this release or about
Carla
Rees in general, you will see that she is described as an
alto
and bass flute specialist. You may then wonder why this
release
has been recorded entirely on C flute - that’s
concert
flute in C, just in case there was anyone who reads the
‘C’
as Contralto, which would be a G flute. This is not just
any
C flute, but one made heavy with the additional riches of
extra
keys which deliver notes in between the ones on your
average
piano keyboard, hence the ‘quartertone’
description.
One of the main reasons Carla is not playing alto or bass
on
this recording is that her apartment building plus its
uniquely
valuable contents - and I don’t mean just
instruments
- was reduced to ashes during the riots in 2011. This kind
of
tragic misfortune would kick most of us into limbo, but
Carla
is having her flutes re-made, and this recording is a
defiant
testament and an example to all of us who have far more
mundane
things with which to cope.
These pieces are also representative of a continuing and
fruitful
artistic collaboration, and the results are very much on
an
equal footing. The flute has its solo role, but Scott
Miller’s
virtuoso electronic sounds are decisive to the atmosphere
of
the disc as a whole. Carla’s cover photo suggests
clockworks
and machinery. There are mechanistic elements in some of
the
musical effects, but I perceive much of this soundscape as
having
its basis in nature. Working alongside and with the flute
as
a sonic medium, it is right and natural that the sounds
should
have some relationship to that simplest of instruments.
All
flautists will admit, even without a few drinks, that all
they
are really doing is blowing a bit of perforated sawn-off
tube
- one of the most basically natural music sounds there is.
The
beauty is in the artist doing the blowing.
bending reed is a good starting place to appreciate
this
point. It’s one of the tracks in which flute and
electronics
come closest in terms of synergy. Overtones and
double-stopping
effects from the flute are taken over and re-formed,
extended
and stretched. The harmonics of the flute are later on
tracked
by an effect which seems to create its own bass
difference-tones.
It is as if Carla was being shadowed by a darkly menacing
bass-recorder
player. Live electronics continue with Seriously, This
is
a Commitment, the flute being joined in a multi-vocal
duet
which will delight fans of WALL●E. This is a track
which
builds up quite a head of steam as the layers of sound
develop
- a strange confluence of driving urgency and poetic
utterance.
Having started halfway through we might as well take a
look
at haiku, interrupted. This is one of the most
haunting
pieces in the programme, with alien voices coming at us in
chorus
and singly. There are moments which suggest aboriginal
ritual,
nocturnal and mysterious. This is as far removed from
Classical
convention as you could imagine and all the more
fascinating
for it. The whole thing ends with the longest fade-out
ever.
You can just tell can’t you? I’m the type of
reviewer
who puts the CD on and starts writing, so the music only
starts
receiving attention by the time the intro has been
concluded.
So, it’s back to track one,
Anterior/Interior,
the revolving electronic whirligigs of which remind me a
little
of bits in Stockhausen’s Kontakte. There are
some
very high pitched moments in this to which your ears may
have
an aversion through less than top-flight buds. Beauty
is
Eternity Gazing in a Mirror explores lower registers,
the
lack of bass flutes substituted by electronic responses
which
lower the pitch and create a whole family of strange
flutes
- including a remarkable virtuoso piccolo. These flute
reflections
transform into egocentric sine-wave shadows which weave
their
own complex tapestry, but over which the flute rules in
its
own confiding and restrained manner. It brings the sines
into
line and has the last word as is its feminine right.
As its title suggests, Omaggio a 1961 will remind
electronic
aficionados of period work by the likes of Stockhausen or
the
early Philips studios, which had people like Varese as
their
figurehead. There are deep electronic booms and bumps,
little
choirs of insects, birds or angels which pop up or fly
past.
This is a festival of angular atonal gesture over which I
feel
the solo flute might have had a more unrestrained and
pro-active
improvisatory freedom. This is still a fascinating and at
times
disturbing musical narrative, with a desolate ending like
abandoned
housing, materials flapping in an uncaring wind. It runs
directly
into the vast distances which open bending reed.
Writing reviews of releases by people you know - however distantly - can be
troublingly burdensome. I would always return a disc rather than have to be
negative. If I do have any criticism it would be that, in general, this is
a set of pieces which takes itself perhaps a tad too seriously. I like a bit
of tongue-in-cheek with this kind of thing, even just a glimmer or subtle
suggestion relating to a more direct sense of entertainment, but that’s
just my taste. Here there is in fact no need for strife and conflict, and
this is a remarkable and excellent production. Yes, to a degree this is a
‘specialist’ album, but I’m always fighting the corner of
contemporary musical language and expression, and would argue this has as
much a right to be on your shelf as Scarlatti or Scriabin - certainly as much
as any pop act you’re likely to see on the Graham Norton show. It has
a different function: not for dancing or candle-lit dinners perhaps, but if
these musicians can create such things can’t you think of a place
in your life it might prove stimulating? Go on, make the effort.
Dominy Clements
Remarkable and stimulating: go on, now you make some effort.