2 out of 5

Label: Monofonus Press / Astral Spirits

Produced by: ?

I think I’ve stated a few times that I generally just don’t have the patience / right mindset for music that is experimental for the sake of being experimental. I mean, I understand that’s not the stated intention – there will be a desire to “explore” something through music or sound – but I suppose that once something moves beyond the realm of ‘song’ and into a conceptual version of that, I bucket it as being done for the sake of itself; perhaps more accurately I should say that music is just the vessel for this project, and you’d listen out of curiosity more than a desire to rock out to looped vocals or pressing record in an empty room.

This link should tell you most of what you need to know about this particular exploration, which paired vocalist Muyassar Kurdi with cellist Nicholas Jozwiak for several recording sessions which would have the duo “connecting with the environment and each other.” These are tales of, as somewhat suggested above, just hitting play and seeing what happens, with Kurdi allowing conversations to inspire bouts of singing; Jozwiak occasionally cello-ing along; and some other details you can read about in that link.

While I’m supportive of documenting art, and I also realize that “music” is a very flexible term – meaning I might not view this recording as substantial enough to qualify, but someone else might – I do try to ask myself, when evaluating experimental music, what one might get out of it. And I had a hard time with this one – it just feels very, very insular: appealing to the creators, or a like-minded group of friends, or maybe to someone who is doing similar experiments of their own.

There are moments where Kurdi uses her voice as more of an “effect” than her talk-speak poetry (which is also a bit too loose and wandering for me to derive much from), and that’s pretty cool; Jozwiak very minimalistically applies the cello, but when he’s actually playing, and maybe there’s an upswing with some chimes, the tracks can have this brief hymnal quality I can appreciate. But the duo doesn’t even seem interested in trimming much of the silence of these recordings, assumedly fascinated by the aural space it creates, so prepare for stretches where nothing is happening.

If I could stretch my brain around a more impactful “Why” of this recording, I’d be a bit more favorable with the rating. But I’m struggling, though, again, I appreciate the pursuit, and there’re enough dots of ideas that I can follow that my listen wasn’t a painful one, but also wasn’t very interesting.