Anyone having realized the tenacious ability for music to form genre eventually notices the tyranny of form and rebels. Beneva vs. Clark Nova (Frank Benjamin Finger (Beneva) and Rudi Simmons (Clark Nova)) sidestep this move and treat musical forms as vocabulary and phrasing to construct, a musical mélange condensing contemporary forms, “some but not all’, into Sombunall . Shifting audio liquid through music shapes as texture and instrument rather than forming desired scapes. Of course this is a point which enfolds upon itself.
At one moment banjo, piano and glitch laden I’m twins (the babies said) awash with hidden instruments, next to a quiet to loud beat heavy and almost symphonic epic 88 Kilos of Excrement morphing into an electronic tonal chamber orchestra out the back of the shack with wind chimes. The inclusion of Norwegian, Therese Au, on His Freefloating Affection and With Love, Etc. add a brittle melancholy and lyrical insight to the precision and multiplicity of the orchestration and programming. To examine all the tracks would render a review into a list akin to; breakcore, broken beats, downtempo, ambient, leftfield, folktronic, and give you very little to grasp onto beyond the label, the type, the genre, when the presentation shows a mastery and fly swatting ability over such examinations.
Sheer weirdness and skill, eccentricity of palate, control of form and ability to blend the diverse and seemingly disparate are all here in multiplicity. It is a surreal world to say the least, seeing no clear distinction between organic, found and constructed sound, between synthetic and “organic’ instruments, seeing the vibrancy of sound as interplay between all form, creating inclusive fluid hybrids. The scope and beauty of such a broad vision should give Beneva vs. Clark Nova quite a following and the possibility of an unending project.
