There’ no use trying to identify specific sounds on this outing from Ignaz Schick and Marcel Türkowsky. In fact, that’s the whole allure. Both collaborators have longstanding ties to Berlin’ experimental underground, and here on a tidy-in-format-only three-inch CD, they offer a bewildering 20-minute piece composed and performed live at an opening in mid-2008. Instruments include tapes, modified Walkmen, bows, organ pipes, and simply “objectsâ€, all harnessed to create an almost guttural undercurrent that can seem to simmer and brew with some undefined threat. It is, after all, the result of shards and crumbs of instruments makeshift and manipulated.
The piece emerges slowly from the ether, marked by what resembles a Theremin (but isn’) wobbling away in the closest approximation here to melody. From there, one detects insect-like chatter amid the various ticklish textures and unmoored beacons of sound. At eight minutes comes what could be pebbles sucked through a straw and perhaps a small dog yelping. With a ruinous turntable at the fore, the midsection is suddenly confronting but soon shows signs of puttering out. And yes, it settles into a teetering, eerie stretch near the end. Then it simply flickers out, like a dodgy torch that wasn’ much consistent in the first place.
Happily, the pair’ work never settles into the safety of background music: it’s constantly challenging and weirdly rewarding. This is a brain-teasing musical adventure that deserves immediate repeating.
Doug Wallen
