Is thing playing? Hello? Anyone? Is there any music? Wait, yes. A minute in and there’s a quiet hum and a fine scrape of feedback. It’s something. A rumble of thunder or a heartbeat, a foetal monitor, perhaps. And always the hum. A high-pitched tone rises in volume, buffeting the eardrums. Sounds swell up and fade out again. A subtle tension mounts. And then, unexpectedly, the sound explodes.
This is what happens when two renowned avant-garde composers, one strictly acoustic (Friedl, the ‘inside piano’ man who has taken John Cage’s ‘prepared piano’ concept beyond imagination), the other purely electronic (Vigroux) come together.
A storm of clattering percussion and a deep sound like a tidal wave collide with grumbling static breaks and blasts violently. It shrieks and howls, and when the violence abates, screaming feedback continues, its tones twisting and intertwining. Whether its source is acoustic or electric is unclear, but it persists, abrading the aural receptors for what feels like a very long time. When the feedback does finally stop, it’s replaced by an multitonal grating buzz, reminiscent of the skull-scraping electronic abrasions found of later Whitehouse albums. The infinite false endings and silences, repeatedly rent by blasts of noise, only prolong the agony.
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Despite only having a playing time of 36 minutes, ‘TOBEL’ is not an easy listen. In fact, at times, it’s extremely difficult, downright unpleasant even. But it’s a forceful work of real intensity that’s likely to challenge even the most hardy of listeners.
TOBEL Website
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