pulse music...
by John McGuire,
Sargasso, London, UK, 2002.
cd with booklet, US$.
scd 28043.
Reviewed by Stefaan Van Ryssen
Jan Delvinlaan 115, 9000 Gent
stefaan.vanryssen@pandora.be
John McGuire has been living and working in Europe for 27 years before
returning to New York. He studied with Penderecki and Kagel and worked
at the renowned studio for Electronic Music of the West Deutsche Rundfunk
(WDR) in Cologne witj Karlheinz Stockhausen. During his years in Cologne,
WDR commissioned three works from him, that have now been published
on cd for the first time. And that is not a heartbeat too soon.
Pulse music III dates from 1978. It is a carefully constructed exercice
in spatially distributed electronic sound which resulted in a fascinating
contrapuntal texture of changing pseudo-chords.
The construction started from a moving series of simple sounds. McGuire
created closed guirlandes that move through the quadrophonic space of
a concert hall. Piling four strings on top of eachother gives an impression
of semi-static, moving, simmering sounds that act like repeated, broken
chords. At irregular intervals, chance phasal coincidences disturb the
dynamic equilibrium and cause the overall aspect of the music to change
abruptly. Tension builds up and is released in a non-regular, unpredictable
pattern that appears to be going on and on.
Vanishing points (1988) is 'an experiment in motion perspective'. Although
the technical details are very interesting, it would take far too much
space to explain them here in detail. The gist of the piece is an attempt
to create an acoustic analogy of a visual horizon, of a limit that moves
away as the viewer moves forward and where objects are growing so small
that they can no longer be distinguished. McGuire transposed these characteristics
of the visual horizon into sound by looking carefully at the rhythm-to-pitch
treshold, i.e. the point at which individual pulses follow one another
so quickly that the ear can no longer distinguish them: literally the
instant at which 'points' vanish.
'Moving' sounds through space and speeding up their occurence gives
rise to nice, unexpected and interesting timbre effects, confusing synaesthetic
experiences and a strong impression of order which eludes analysis.
A Cappella (1995-1997) was written for and is performed on this cd by
the soprano Beth Griffith.
Three sets of recordings were used as building blocks: the soprano singing
e's, ah's and u's at pitches spanning her range. These recordings were
mixed and processed into two artificial 'chorusses' where the three
vowels are present. Each chorus is then used as a player or an instrument
in a game of call and response between the solo singer and the tape.
The soloist more or less takes on the character of one of the chorusses,
causing it to 'move' closer to her and causing the other to retreat
into the role of a musical backdrop or canvas.
A Cappella is by far the most accessible piece for listeners who are
not really interested in the technicalities of electronic composition.
All three pieces are, however, perfect illustrations of what electronic
music can be if it is conceived from an architectural, rational standpoint.
The accompanying text with this cd is well written and clear. It is
compulsory reading if you want to fully enjoy the recordings.
