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Intermission - Unanswered Questions
"Intermission" is a band with a very unusual configuration of
instruments. Three of its members (Wilbert de Koode, William Parker, and Hideji Taninaka)
all play double bass. The fourth member, Klaas Hekman, plays bass saxophone. Needless to
say, they have the low end of the frequency spectrum covered. The five pieces on this 71
minute CD document their work with three other artists, guitarist Derek Bailey, pianist
Chris Burn, and electro acoustic artist Gilius van Bergeijk.
In February of 1998,
they did a concert with Derek Bailey in Amsterdam, Precisely one month later and in
Tilburg, they did another concert with Derek. This time, they did an accompanied tape
piece of Bergeijk's called "Omaggio a Pasolini." Precisely one month later
and in Breda, they did a concert with Chris Burn.
The pieces are wonderful, masterful. This music invokes highly evocative states of mind.
It is pastoral. It is tempest. It is breathtaking. It is cosmic birth. It is final
redemption. It is sound art at the edge of the abyss. It is free improvisation. It is what
happens when an unanswerable question meets an unquestionable answer. Did I already
mention masterful?
Guitarist, musical historian and author of "Extended Play, Sounding Off from
John Cage to Dr. Funkenstein," John Corbett wrote the liner notes. He starts off
almost poetically with a treatise on how low frequency instruments are hard to locate
spacially. Then he poses a lot of unanswerable questions humself. He then gives some
history on some of the musicians and on some of the music. The liner notes appear to be in
both Chinese and English.
The CD itself comes in a plastic covering. The "J card" is in an asian style
that reminds me of the cover of my Wilhelm/Baynes edition of the I Ching. Like the
Chinese Book of Changes, the music of this CD is a confluence of elements that combine and
recombine into different situations. It serves as an oracle into that which is both rich
and strange. Beautiful.
Glenn Engstrand
BVHAAST 9906
Prinseneiland 99
1013 LN Amsterdam, Holland
http://www.ejn.it/ag/bvhaast.htm
boeket@antenna.nl
wbk@xs4all.nl