AVIVA ENDEAN - cinder : ember : ashes

Among the most compelling threads in the sprawling overdevelopment of contemporary music is undoubtedly that of writing for and experimenting with the solo instrument. There seems to be no limit to the exploration of extended techniques capable of mutating, bending and subverting the classical sonorities tied to each instrument. The Ingar Zach label has paid increasing attention, in particular, to the new expressive forms of wind instruments, presenting over the course of 2017 the work of international figures such as Martin Küchen, Jim Denley and Philippe Lauzier, and earlier the fellow Norwegian Henrik Munkeby Nørstebø.

What most unites the different paths of these soloists seems to be a 'primitivist' approach to sound, one that precedes musical notation and therefore the codification of tonal particles. This is especially true of Australian clarinettist Aviva Endean, the latest arrival in this ideal series under the Sofa imprint: yet the atavistic shadings presented on her debut "cinder : ember : ashes" do not arise solely from a visceral approach to the instrument, as if it were a rudimentary shamanic summons. In some cases they are achieved through a dialogue between the winds and external elements, such as the resonant surface of a timpani, traversed across its entire expanse to yield hypnotic effects of distortion and sonic undulation ("apparition : above"); or through a pocket amplifier that filters the breath tone until it resembles the sine wave of an old modular synth short-circuiting.

In "distant song : afar" Aviva's voice intones a tribal lullaby over the continuous tone of whistles, which receive the airflow without ever unfolding into elaborate arabesques. If the bass clarinet of the following piece evokes the more shadowy and introspective Colin Stetson, amid delicate key clicks and excessive high-register resonances, the African umtshingo of "undulations : behind" forges an unprecedented union between the phonetic glossary of Salvatore Sciarrino and the disquieting Maori poetics of Rob Thorne.

A brief, caressing, "cantabile" finale fades into the timeless silence from which Aviva Endean's music seems to emerge, fitting with complete coherence into the ever more praiseworthy roster of the Norwegian experimental catalogue.

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01/11/2018