I first came across Alexander Berne through his Flickers
of Mime/Death of Memes (see review).
Self Referentials is his third release from the intrepid
Innova label. Produced in a limited edition of 800, each copy
has a signed and hand-painted insert functioning as part of
the cover, so each copy is unique and will probably look nothing
like the illustration above. This is one of those releases for
which you will want to keep the little cellophane outer sleeve
to protect your mini-artwork. A look at the Innova website shows
the kind of thought and effort which has gone into these little
abstracts, and these are certainly worth having. I remember
a few limited edition pop albums in the past which had a similar
concept, but the ‘art’ work usually gave away a
production-line lack of time and input, going no further than
an anonymous stripe and a daub no doubt repeated hundreds of
times with very little variation. My copy, no. 291, has thick
impasto texture and a multitude of lines and colours - instant
art yes, but with interest and integrity, and clearly different
to all the other examples to be seen on Berne’s website
and elsewhere.
The same goes for the music - in terms of integrity rather than
being instant art, though even with many hours of studio work,
Alexander Berne manages to maintain a high degree of spontaneity
in his tracks. Flickers of Mime/Death of Memes is, as
its black housing already suggests, a fairly dark immersion
into worlds of the imagination. With Self Referentials
Berne has gathered the sounds of exotic instruments and voices
to add a feeling of travel and an international palette of sonorities
to his electronic textures, layers of piano, saxophone and goodness
knows what else. One of the elements of Berne’s work is
his interest in making his own instruments and exploring unusual
ones, and this serves to create unique soundscapes throughout.
In the words of Maxwell Chandler who wrote the liner-notes,
this work “doubles as both the landscape and the Sherpa
that accompanies you on the journey.” There is also an
interesting interview between Maxwell and Alexander here.
Disc one involves plenty of collage techniques, extended development
over drones, a gorgeously toothsome slowly wailing multi-tracked
saxophone in Four Instantiations, which manages to sound
modern and medieval at the same time - Jan Garbarek and the
Hilliard Ensemble take note. Many of these pieces suggest moments
suspended or trapped in time, with the ringing piano notes in
Of Fugal Melancholia suggesting a slowly turning giant
music box. It takes a moment or two to enter Berne’s world,
but once you are there your imagination will take flight. Try
the first of the Sonum Onscurum: Headphonic Apparitions
if you want a quick ‘fix’, as this track has it
all, recalling some of the sonorities in some of Berne’s
previous releases as well as the expressive worlds of ethnic
sounding wind instruments. You’ll want to sample some
of this in advance, and a peek at the www.innova.mu
website will help you decide if you want the whole thing or
just to dip your toes in with a few downloads.
The second CD of this set is a suite called An Unnamed Diary
of Places I Went Alone. This collection is dedicated to
Berne’s late friend and collaborator Jaik Miller, whose
voice appears in IV and elsewhere. A kind of requiem
in its overall feel, this set of pieces is haunting in the extreme.
Anyone who has truly engaged in creative work of any kind will
know something of that inner journey on which one has to embark.
This can be a scary prospect, and in my experience your ‘creative
block’ is frequently a conscious or unconscious unwillingness
to cross that dividing line between merely existing, and stepping
into that void of unknown connections and unfettered dreams
which can create something new. It’s that or the fear
that your creative ‘zone’ will only throw up utter
rubbish, or even nothing at all - a failure which can destroy.
I only bring up this subject since Alexander Berne’s Unnamed
Diary comes closest to almost anything I could name in taking
us into these regions of dreams and the unexpected - someone
else’s deeply personal and far-reaching inner journey.
These are elusive worlds of the possible, their actuality always
demanding that we interpret and comprehend on our own terms.
The skin chills as a voice whispers ‘can you hear me’
into your left ear, and the mind’s eye is thrust into
an icy room where breathing is painful, where mortality is up
close and personal. Playing this and listening to it properly
may become as hard as taking yourself off into an empty room
with a blank piece of paper, but once you’ve done it and
come out the other side your life will have been enriched, and
you will be glad to be alive.
Dominy Clements
Full Track-List
Self Referentials Volume 1
Far Afield Recording [1:58]
Pulsationism (The Long Tick) [5:23]
Ruse (Fantastique) [5:34]
A Choir of Threnodic Winds [3:53]
Hidden Memories: Plangent Wail [3:58]
Transsublimination [4:22]
Four Instantiations [2:12]
Amphibiana [5:55]
Of Fugal Melancholia [5:24]
Sonum Onscurum: Headphonic Apparitions Part I [5:17]
Sonum Onscurum: Headphonic Apparitions Part II [4:47]
Sonum Onscurum: Headphonic Apparitions Part III [5:55]
Self Referentials Volume 2
An Unnamed Diary of Places I Went Alone
I [1:31]
II [2:28]
III [2:56]
IV [2:31]
V [3:30]
VI [1:59]
VII [2:13]
VIII [2:25]
IX [2:32]
X [3:31]
XI [4:00]
XII [3:12]
XIII [2:56]
XIV [3:19]
XV [1:20]
XVI [2:57]
XVII [1:35]
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Alexander Berne and the Abandoned Orchestra 