Axel Dorner is a German trumpet player, and Lucio Capece is an Argentinian player of soprano sax and bass clarinet, currently resident in Berlin. This untitled CD consists of just two long tracks, both of which are, strangely enough, untitled. The music is a kind of reductionist improv, where the instruments are almost never used to produce the sounds which one might consider characteristic of their type. Instead we are treated to a mostly quiet and sparse series of breathy smears, scrapes, drones, clicks and percussive sounds – everything except a straightforward technique.
Whilst I cheer on those musicians working on the outer fringes of the avant-garde, I must admit that I find this music hard to warm to, and I suspect it is much more fun to make than it is to listen to. For me, this music does not yield much in the way of rewards. It is perhaps significant that this has been released on L’innomable, a Slovenian label named after Beckett’s celebrated novel of the same name, which itself bumps up against the limits of what can be expressed through language. In the same way, Dörner and Capece approach the limits of what can be expressed through musical and sonic language. Or perhaps I could say that they have created a private language – which, by definition, only they can understand.
Ewan Burke
