Dario Palermo | Difference Engines | Amirani Records

The way Dario Palermo deals with formal structures and different expressive grounds, complexity and a peculiar taste for a refined primitive touch is really remarkable. All three compositions here have been conceived as a multi-perspective field of artistic investigation: Dario Palermo RO-Premiére danse de la Lune, featuring a superb interpretation by percussionist Milo Tamez, is an astounding journey through the hybridization process of single percussive voices with electroacoustic treatments, emphasized frequencies, polyrhythmic mazes, generating a sonic organism in which ancestral and future sounds dance a beautiful interaction. Performed by the world-wide prized Arditti String Quartet and by brilliant mezzo-soprano Catherine Carter, the composition Difference Engine delivers a single movement in which several areas fluidly melt in a complex process of metamorphosis. Tasty subtleness, extremely accurate attention to detail, together with a skilled overall compositional vision, build up a macro-object that clearly reveal Palermo’s attitude to complexity and generative compositional method. A great piece. In TRANCE, biological and physical vocal characteristics, and pure singing vocal aspects, are subject-objects (material) of the work, paired in a constant fluctuant correspondence, which structure the shape and form of the work . The central role is played here by vocalist Jean-Michel Van Schouwburg whose journey in phonemes, polysyllables and physical vocal flexibilities find a perfect partner in real time electronic treatment. Continue reading

Sureau | Jean-Michel Van Schouwburg | Jean Demey | Kris Vanderstraeten | Gianni Mimmo | Enzo Rocco | The Leuven Concert

The SUREAU trio trio is playing free spontaneous improvisations based on mutual listening, musical invention and sound exploration. Double bass , voice and percussion. This collective music is shaped with our own very individual sounds research since years of practice and reflection with the help of our imagination. Extended techniques and tangent interactive thinking. These five new tracks of the whole concert in Leuven’s Oratorium 22 oct ’09 is a good starting point for the listener and one crucial step in our evolution. Continue reading

Jean-Michel Van Schouwburg | Jean Demey | John Russell | The Mercelis Concert (Brussels 2006)

“Van Schouwburg… unleashes a distinctive array of throat, mouth and tonsil intonation that encompasses guttural murmuring, duck-like quacks, extended nattering, Satchmo-style growls, saliva-filled expositions, Bedlam-like mumbles and vibrating warbles. Russell responds with crossbow-like pulls on his strings, rasps beneath the guitar’s bridge and abrasive extended slides.” — Ken Waxman, JAZZword Continue reading