A
New York Minute
by Alan Licht
XI Records, New York, 2003
2 Audio-CDs, 2 Hrs, 3 mi., 15 secs; XI
#128, $13.00
http://www.experimentalintermedia.org/xi/128.shtml.
Reviewed by Stefaan Van Ryssen
Hogeschool Gent
Jan Delvinlaan 115, 9000 Gent, Belgium
stefaan.vanryssen@pandora.be
If you are listening closely, a New York
minute lasts for more than two hours.
Is this the conundrum that plays a pivotal
role in Alan Lichts most recent
release? Oops, I give away some of the
main influences behind this music already.
Pauline Oliveros and the Deep Listening
Band are not very far away, and time is
of the essence in this auditory analysis
of time. Of course, music is the art form
dealing with time par excellenceand
even Pergolesi and Brueckner have been
struggling with it in their own rightbut
in Alan Lichts hands, sound and
time are morphed one into the other, mutually
measuring each other and setting the framework
for the awareness and concentration the
listener involuntarily and of necessity
develops.
The title track consists of compiled,
multi-tracked weather-reports from everyday
in January 2001 in the great city. Reminiscent
of the America-compilations of Ferdinand
Kriwet of the late 60's, they still have
some freshness and originality to them,
if only because they deal with the general
and the abstract through the anecdotal.
After all, the weather is there, whatever
the time. (In French both time and the
weather are indicated by the same word:
le temps). Anyway, this track announces
what follows: Five lengthy pieces where
repetition and not quite similarity are
the essential ingredients for a musical
experience of the highest quality. Intellectually
brave and technically brilliant, each
separate composition exemplifies how a
musician can get the most results out
of the merest of materials and must never
resort to pathetic gestures or spectacular
and climactic moves to catch the most
intangible aspect of consciousness.
According to Kenneth Goldsmith who wrote
one of two introductory texts in the accompanying
booklet,
"Alan Licht has been a curator of
music as well as a tireless performer.
While his earlier recordings have seamlessly
melded his improvisational guitar playing
with extended plundered sounds, this record
takes things a few steps further. Instead
of fusing the many sides of Licht into
one monolithic mega-mix, this disc separates
them into discreet compositions. The guitar
pieces are showcases as guitar pieces
and the plundered works are just that."
And Jutta Koether adds:
"There are quite a few distortions
of time and space happening in and between
those tracks, but it is also about a wise
and interesting use of a stimulant, about
balancing, experimenting with the dosage
of the guiter [or organ, or sample] drone.
Playful de-virtuosities. Making and unmaking
of the moment. And that's how one's body
might relate to that. How everything in
New York can be the most precious thing
or precious moment and then nothing-thing
or nothing-moment in an instant and then
again. Alan Licht's music works right
with this ongoing stream of contradictions."
Whatever the superlatives, what we have
here is a set of five improvisations-compositions
that are grounded in a respectable tradition
of conceptual music, treading in the footsteps
of La Monte Young and Terry Riley, but
also in those of Pauline Oliveros, Michael
Snow, and Martin Rev. There are otherEuropeaninfluences
as well, but the end result is identifiably
and utterly East Coast American, including
all the exuberant celebration of emptiness
and moral ennui. In the beginning,
there was nothing, in the end, there will
be musicand it might as well
be Alan Licht's.