La obra de David Jackman es un auténtico filón para amantes de Maurizio Bianchi o Nurse With Wound. Entre esos dos universos se coloca una obra de tan rotunda belleza oscura como "Vacant Lights", dos extensas piezas que sobrecogen y son una auténtica debilidad. Una de las recomendaciones más encarecidas que puedo hacer.
"There
are few artists more elusive than David Jackman. Active in modern
music since the early 1960s, Jackman took part in British composer
Cornelius Cardew's crucial Scratch Orchestra, which at various times
has featured luminaries such as granddaddies of noise AMM, composers
Howard Skempton and Gavin Bryars, and the legendary Brian Eno. Since
then-- either under his own name or under the more recognized
moniker, Organum-- Jackman has released countless records that exist
on the peripheral edges of industrial and experimental music.
As private as Jackman is, his list of collaborators reads like a
who's who of experimental heavyweights: Jim O'Rourke, Nurse with
Wound's Steve Stapleton, Current 93's David Tibet, Main, Eddie
Prevost, The Haters, The New Blockaders, and Christoph Heemann have
all had roles in his Organum project."
“Vacant
Lights works
so well because it seems so simple. There are two players, David
Jackman (who is the center of Organum) and Dinah Jane Rowe. In what
appears to be an improvised live performance, they bow metal (perhaps
gongs or cymbals?), roll metal pipes along the ground, and play
breathy fragments of melodies on what sound to me like shakuachis, or
wooden flutes of some sort. The ever-present coating of reverb that
accompanies most Organum recordings adds portense to the spare
movements of the players, but it isn't overbearing here as it is on
Ikon
or
other less successful Organum records. What takes Vacant
Lights to
the next level is that it appears to have been recorded outside, on a
city street.
The
Organum duo plays along to the sounds of passing cars, city buses,
honking, wind, distant urban noise... throughout, they are highly
sensitive to their surroundings, treating all sounds as equal
compositional elements. At times, they play beneath the city sounds,
adding a layer of rolling fog under the environment. At other times,
the flutes poke through, but find some aboveground pitch to blend
into; eventually, environment and intentional playing become
indistinguishable. Two producers (including Nurse With Wound's Steven
Stapleton) are to credit for bringing the environment into the
recording with such detail and clarity, but ultimately the success
belongs to Organum for creating a record that is part field
recording, part improvisation, and finally something unique. It's
such a simple and well-executed idea, that the depth of music belies
its illuson of naturalness and effortlessness"
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