Le confezioni dei cd dell’etichetta canadese specializzata in musica elettroacustica, acusmatica e concrète sono cartonici coloratissimi, zeppi di parole: biografia dell’autore, note esplicative per ogni pezzo, provenienza (spesso si tratta di composizioni nate in ambito accademico e/o che hanno vinto premi internazionali). Ciò vale anche per David Berezan che nelle sue allusioni sonore riprende le esplorazioni del mondo asiatico, con una sortita nella natia Alberta. Buon esercizio di stile tra sciabordii e strumenti balinesi […] (6)

Another aural delight for the lovers of unconventional electroacoustic sonorities and field recordings from the well-known Canadian label empreintes DIGITALes bear the signature — the second for the imprint — of Uk-based fellow countryman David Berezan, who recently mastered the five acousmatic works he made from 2008 and 2011. The oldest one, Badlands, is related to his native region, Alberta, as he grabbed some field recordings in the so-called badlands or calanques in Southern Alberta in the summer of 2007 so that the densely constructed soundscapes he built by means of intriguing amalgamation of buzzing insects, chirping cicadas and crickets, flurries, eroding rocks and even skits of traditional American Indian ritual sonoritis vaguely exudes a sense of nostalgia while rendering dinosaur fossils, indigenous people history, lovely parks and the characteristic climate of that part of the planet. If we go in a chronological order, the following track Nijō teleports listeners inside Japanese castles; the title refers to Nijō Castle in Kyoto, where David supposedly recorded the sounds he assembled for this track, which focuses on the squeaking sound when a visitor of the castle walks upon its wooden floors, which are commonly known as “uguisubari” (meaning “nightingale floors” due to the fact they sound like chirping!) and functions as a security system which detects intruders, which cannot but inspire a sound artist like David, who tried to go beyond those floors by nailing occasional Japanese voices, high-speed trains and other noises from contemporary Japan which bumped into his microphones. Another region of the planet Mr Berezan visited many times and grabbed many sounds from is Bali, Indonesia, which fed Galungan, where he carefully nestled sounds from the Galungan religious festival, the rice paddies, the rich nocturnal natural life and the gamelan in order to render both the extraordinary natural environment and the impressively rich Balinese traditional culture, and Thumbs, where David just recorded a single plucked sound froma Balinese thumb piano before processing it while inspired by anything related to the word “thumb” that came to his mind during the compostion (all-thumbs, thumbs-up / down, under thumb, thumbing through and so on). The most recent track is maybe the most unconventional one as David entirely assembled Buoy from sounds of different kinds of sea buoys, whose bells, whistles and gongs as well as detecting systems (whereas buoys normally aid sea navigation or circumscribe safe area for swimmers or divers, some buoys aid scientific research of ecology, oceanography or maritime weather) could be considered as a sort of decoding of an imaginary language of the sea.

I flera fall förefaller kanadensaren David Berezans kompositioner något tämjda av den institutionella apparat som omgärdar den akusmatiska musiken, medan ett verk som “Galungan” — tillika min personliga favorit — snarare bryter mot alla tendenser till ett reserverat tillstånd. Albumets första stycke, “Buoy”, är också en höjdpunkt, varför placeringen likaså känns angelägen. Att fånga lyssnarens uppmärksamhet omedelbart har förstås sina fördelar, men ökar också förväntningarna på kommande stycken, vilka när de inte infrias, förtar lite av upplevelsen.

“Buoy” upptas av en slags navigering mellan tematiska stoff utifrån ljudet av klockor och visslor som sjöbojar är utrustade med. Med detta material som bas har Berezan vidare arbetat fram abstrakta klanglandskap tillsammans med en god andel, synnerligen konkreta, vågskvalp; vi gungas in, kastas ut och tumlar runt i ett marint ekosystem där sjöbojarnas instrument utstakar vägen. Det abstrakta klangmaterialet till trots, präglas “Buoy” av en följsamhet genom de guidande vissel- och klockljuden. Vackert, övertygande och saltstänkt! Lite kuriosa är att stycket tillkom under residenser vid Visby International Center for Composers och Elektronmusikstudion och fick dessutom sin urpremiär i Gävle.

“Thumbs” utgår från ett anslag på ett balinesiskt tumpiano, som sedan har utsatts för allehanda manipulationer och slutligen sammanställts till ett närmare tolv minuter långt verk. Den reducerande arbetsmetoden har en lång historia i elektroakustiska sammanhang och får mig att tänka på en klassiker som Pierre Henrys “Variationer över en dörr och ett andetag” (1963). Berezans verk har naturligtvis en kristallklar ljudbild, utan några trubbiga kanter som annars präglar Henrys stycke. Glansen och den tekniska fulländningen i “Thumbs” är dock tyngre än det konstnärliga resultatet, som tyvärr imponerar föga. Jag kan inte hjälpa att istället slås av hur tidlöst och konstnärligt fulländat Henrys 51 år gamla stycke faktiskt är.

Efterföljande “Badlands” är mig också likgiltig och väcker snarare en tanke om den akusmatiska musikens villkor. Ur det perspektivet förefaller verket präglas av ett outtalat regelverk, en formel för hur musiken ska klinga, framför några nya infallsvinklar som bryter och väcker förundran. Det är tjusigt sammansatt till ett vulgärgestiskt och glaciärgrynigt uttryck, med en livfull dynamik som luktar tävlingsmaterial. Dock inte mer än så.

I ljuset av smärre besvikelser beträffande “Thumbs” och “Badlands”, framstår albumets fjärde spår, “Galungan”, som ett smärre mästerverk. Det standardiserade uttrycket hamnar i skuggan och istället framträder en mer koncentrerad klangbild. Ljuden har hämtats från Ubud på Bali och kombinerar obehandlade fältupptagningar med utsökta bearbetningar till en fantasieggande glans. Man anar den folkliga gamelanmusiken och en kortare sekvens av ”monkey chant”, men i sammanhanget skapas en ny musikkultur, som både är jordigt basal och en själslig fullträff.

Förväntningarna ökar sålunda när vi landar på sista spåret, “Nijō”, som hämtar intryck liksom ljud från så kallade näktergalgolv, vilka återfinns i tempel och på andra platser i Japan. Tydligen knarrar dessa i syfte att skrämma bort potentiella tjuvar och andra oönskade personer från inbrott. Anledningen till att en näktergal har smugit sig in i namnet är det knarrandet ljudet, som även påminner om fågelkvitter. Berezan redogör vidare för att “Nijō” ”delves deeper into, and within the floorboards, revealing not only birds but many voices and soundworlds of traditional and contemporary Japan”. Här förlorar Berezan åtminstone mig. Plötsligt känns allt väldigt krystat och den ljudande gestaltningen förefaller platt; ljudmaterialet finns där, men det är bara ett konstaterande.

“Buoy” och “Galangan” gör ändå Allusions sonores väl värd att utforska. Berezan uppvisar även en skicklighet i övriga kompositioner, men i mina öron inskränker det sig mycket till en fullfjättrad teknisk uppvisning utan överraskningar.

The electroacoustic music of David Berezan sounds very physical; at the same time it loses itself a bit into the vagueness of the spatial being of the environmental sounds themselves. It collects, reshapes and organises the recorded sounds in a richer form of variety, then after a while, also such a collection, this starts to become a common familiarity and a plain formal entity of ideas.

My favourite track is Buoy (2011) which is based upon the exploration of the sound environment from sea buoys, which are used to aid sea navigation and for the scientific research of maritime weather, ecology and oceanography, where a whole area of data is collected. Although the amount of sonic material seems to be rather limited in sources, I still get the impression that this foundation shows a much wider range of material shifts as being indicated. It goes smoothly from one world to the next with a few extra associations in its sonic extension. First of all I hear what is the impression of something like splashing of stones in water. Further on are the sounds of stone rubble itself. I hear certain waves of more electronic sounding reactions, and then also, the rambling of harp like aluminium rods or more metallic vibrations, being carried upon the rhythms of waves which shows this whole range of sound worlds, a change from one sort of resonance or area towards the next, changing the sound material in pitch and effect, flowing and transforming itself from one area to the next, onto the sea wave rhythm. But even here, after a while, the attention to it and all these available changes do not find much more else outside these nice contrasts so that after a while the left over attention tends to dissolve and blur each recollection of it, and each trans-position so much into one another, that what at one point this seemed like systematic order and change, thoroughly seems to be determined to become nothing but a chaotic collection of natural varieties.

Thumbs (2011) is based upon the plucked sound recording of a Balinese thumb piano, forming clusters, dripping sounds, and collections of tones, collected just like grains of tones, or like blurry collections of tones and also, a whole sound world of ambient resonances. Faster varieties with an inner rhythm and certain slower inner rhythms are combined, echoing and droning again tend to go drowning in all its varieties.

Badlands (2008) collected sound materials from the prairie landscape of southern Alberta, Canada, like birds, insects, flies, sand, natural contrasts and echoes, breathing rhythms, the idea of “there once lived dinosaurs”, rhythms that are found, and voices.

Galungan (2010) used the recordings collected in and around Ubud in Bali, like the sound of a gamelan bowl. The tones are reconnected in a random fast and slow rhythm, creating its own dust of sounds.

Nijō (2009) is based upon the Nightingale Floors wooden floors in temples in Japan with its chirping and squeaking sound when walked upon, combined with the voices of the surrounding environment too, again finding its random rhythms, and its blurry existence. Birds, human voices and a train whistle can be heard in it too.

I miss a bit the vision of a composer doing something more than collecting random sounds and making a sound pallet from it. Here these sound ballets in the end become something like dusty sound sand, with a vague inner rhythm and the idea of keeping the separate sounds distinctive. This exploited loose connections does not really add something extra to these environments and in fact hardly bring the hidden qualities more to the fore. It more confirms a random vision in the hearing process, as if all is dust and comes to dust. I hope that electroacoustic music gets a few more definitions and visions than that in future, dimensions that are not so easily blown away to dust.