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ROSS, LESLIE - Drop By Drop, Suddenly

Format: do-CD Label & Cat.Number: Experimental Intermedia - XI 141 Release Year: 2018 Note: if you're into the ultra minimal drones of E RADIGUE or P. OLIVEROS, it's high time to discover LESLIE ROSS! => this is the very first release of works from this Bassoon (Fagott!) player, starting with shorter tracks that are very dry & concrete, followed by longer, multi-layered, smooth & contemplative ones..."An instrument builder, inventor and skilled player who lives surrounded by canaries and cats, and produces valhallas of tones, microtones and illusory tones from a single source." [Massimo Ricchi] Price (incl. 19% VAT): €17.50 More Info "The first CD starts with the shortest seed pieces that play primarily with the timbral and microtonal differences highlighted between tone-holes, forming a layered, pseudo-multitrack effect while playing with only one fingering, single note or multiphonic. They range from the more strictly tonal or modal pitch-centered to the thicker atonal and dissonant collection of frequencies found in some multiphonics. Pieces progress to longer complex ones by the second CD, some of which have as minimal material as the shorter ones, but make more extensive use of live multitrack recordings and frequency filters to further bring out changes in frequencies or accentuate beatings inherent in specific multiphonics. The electronics used were created explicitly for each composition using the computer-based program MAX/MSP. Save for the unconventional 15 microphones of the “prepared bassoon”, these recordings include pieces with no sound processing whatsoever, as well as pieces that do involve sound processing and multi-tracking. Importantly, however, any processing (timed entrances of microphones, overdubbing, looping, spectrum filtering, pitch shifting...) is made in real time, not post-recording. All recordings are single-take recordings where four speaker channels along with room microphones have been mixed down to stereo. Key clicks occasionally get picked up in a loop recording to return sometimes processed, sometimes not later; in circular breathing a multiphonic might drop out a moment before sounding again –what might sound like clicks or occasional drop outs on some of the recordings are not overlooked mastering faults but the result of this live processing and playing as would be experienced in performance. With a formal background in classical music and early performance practice Leslie Ross took a plunge into the free improv scene of downtown NYC in the mid 80’s and has immersed herself in experimental music ever since. Her connected, parallel, work as baroque bassoon builder also opened up into explorations of invented instruments and sound installations at the same time. She has presented solo programs, both acoustic and electro-acoustic with laptops or electronics throughout Europe and the US over the past three decades. In the mid 2000’s she returned her music focus to a detailed exploration, analysis and understanding of bassoon multiphonics, the details of which she has made freely available on her website. It is through this exploration of multiphonics and the subtle changes made when playing with resonance keys that she was brought to the multiple-mic project of this CD." [label info] https://xirecords.bandcamp.com/album/drop-by-drop-suddenly "In my desperately insufficient erudition, the sum of “bassoon” and “woman” gave “Lindsay Cooper” as the most likely result until three days ago, when – while rummaging across the piles of promos received in 2018 – I retrieved this 2-CD set by Leslie Ross. Haven’t been listening to anything alternative since. More than the trademark biography-in-pills used by the official specialists to fill half of a writeup, let me urge you to check this article to understand the kind of creative individual we’re dealing with. An instrument builder, inventor and skilled player who lives surrounded by canaries and cats, and produces valhallas of tones, microtones and illusory tones from a single source. What’s not to like? A resort for brains who don’t content themselves with shabby explanations, Drop By Drop, Suddenly comprises tracks of length varying from 5’13” to 27’37”. An attentive look at the program reveals that the pieces are ordered from shortest to longest, as if Ross wished to take the hand of the listeners to gradually immerse them into oceanic clusters to reach mental emptiness. We also noticed that the harshness deriving from certain pitch contiguities tends to decline (not always!) with the temporal extension. What Ross is telling us – perhaps without realizing – is that every apparent strain can be alleviated or, at the very least, considered under different perspectives with the acquisition of fundamental psychoacoustic data. Especially when lulled by such a concentration of upper partials, occasionally suggesting fragments of near-immobile melody (“Closed Circuit, A Pastoral”) or simply lifting us from the chair (“Water”). Amazingly, everything heard occurs in real time. Even when veritable legions of bassoons (and relative key clicks, and whatever else one can hear, including the aforementioned birds) are perceived in the stereo field. It’s all born from an expert positioning of the microphones – Ross amplifies the unthinkable, besides the “normal” – and loops, natural or less: what do we know, poor guitarists deprived of the chance of circular breathing? The aim of the composer – subjecting the audience to a feeling close to the vibrational totality experienced by the performer – is achieved in full. Equally notable is the cross of inner stability and disregard of corporeal issues generated by the superimpositions; but we’re on Phill Niblock’s label, therefore we were expecting it, in a way. And so, another case of droning wonderment. However – trust this madman – that’s just the beginning of an utterly enriching voyage. Sometimes being a canary implies receiving incredible rewards." [Touching Extremes]