This was one of two titles I procured taking advantage of Potlatch records sale on its entire catalogue this past summer. Phosphor is: Burkhard Beins, percussion; Alessandro Bosetti, soprano saxophone; Axel Dörner, trumpet and electronics; Robin Hayward, tuba; Annette Krebs, electro-acoustic guitar; Andrea Neumann, inside piano and mixing desk; Michael Renkel, acoustic guitar and Inaz Shick, electronics. I knew that this ensemble was at the genesis of the movement of what has variously been called “reductionism” “lower-case.” That knowledge in no way prepared me for this album. The music contains none of the extreme sparsity or stretches of silence I had imagined. Their improvisation is actually quite busy, and shifts texture frequently. The names that have been applied to this style are most accurate in describing the nature and quality of sounds used more so than the overall structure of the improvisation. The performers all use deliberately limited means of sound production, including a preponderance of non-pitched sounds. These often make the instruments difficult to differentiate from one another, especially the breath tones that are prominently used by Dörner, and Bosetti. Similarly, Andrea Neumann uses her “inside piano” which is a custom-built piano soundboard, without the casing or keyboard of the instrument, to produce sounds difficult to identify as a piano, or even as recognizable extended piano techniques. It seems as if no individual idea presented in the improvisations develops or really changes much of its own accord. Each gesture simply enters the musical space for awhile, remains largely static and eventually disappears. All of the performers have a remarkable and admirable ability to sustain a sound or texture with no overtly expressive qualities, and almost no variation. The result is a foreign landscape of sound that alternately accumulates and subsides, constantly changing without ever latching onto a “direction” or predictable outcome. This music sounds fresh, and contemporary, it suggests that there are still further challenges in improvised music to be tackled.
