The ever-subdued folk at Dragon’s Eye go one lower with the typically sober-titled Clean Forms, dedicated to minimalist visual artists or artworks, featuring one piece apiece by three producers. An attempt is made to emphasise the link between 1960s minimalism of the Donald Judd school with the reductionist sound art practised by contemporary producers such as Fourm, Shinkei and Luigi Terra. This is unecessary, having been made many times before, the connection firmly established in the minds of anyone even vaguely familiar with music of this sort. Consequently, there’s no denying the successful evocation of minimlist visual principles in these cold, austere sound pieces.
Each artist takes quite a different approach, so there’s a welcome degree of variation within this reduced setting. Fourm’s dedication to Mark Rothko recalls Morton Feldman’s elegy to the painter’s Texan chapel, favouring blurred contours and persistent low-end hum. Shinkei’s ‘Nokori (for Ken Nakazawa)’ zooms in on frenzied micro-activity, what sounds like the crackling of a fire and the tinkering of small metallic objects, all sharpened to a clinical degree. Luigi Terra takes a similar approach on ‘Aluminium.Zinc’, with hints to maritime activity in the tug and chaff of rope on wood, waves, and indeterminate rustling, masking barely-there groans and moans of animal origin. The uber-refined use of few resources is indeed admirable, but the difficulty in actually perceiving much, even with the volume cranked up, remains frustrating, whatever the intention.
Joshua Meggitt
*
