Ake Parmerud – Jeu d’ombres
Swedish composer Ake Parmerud has been working full-time with instrumental and electro-acoustic music and multi-media art for theatre, dance and film since the late 1970s. Released in 2003, his Jeu d’ombres CD consists of six works spanning the years 1988-1999 that combine instruments with electronic sounds. “Strings and Shadows” (1993) is a fragile and homely yet beautiful piece that effortlessly melds a harp with abstract aural shards. True to its name, “Stringquartett” (1988) pits a string quartet with hectic cut-ups of concrete sounds similar to Karlheinz Stockhausen’s 1958 piece, “Kontakte.”
The also-appropriately-titled “Renaissance” (1994) combines a vintage analog synth with Renaissance instruments like drums, lute, krumhorn and viola de gamba for some nice nocturnal swells. A sax quartet plays Charlie Parker riffs in “Retur” (1992-93) while the Jetsons and their friends flit about in little flying cars. During “Les Flutes en Feu” (1999), a short metallic ping punctuates rippling waves of transformed flute. And last but not least, the album’s closer, “Repulse” (1990), piles up to five simultaneous layers of hectic electronic sword-swishing and granular twitters. All in all, Jeu d’ombres is a fine release for anyone who likes to hear actual humans interact with the otherworldly electronic ether.
Label: empreintes DIGITALes Catalog Number: IMED 0367 Format: CD Packaging: Paperboard fold-out in slipcase Tracks: 6 Total Time: 66:10 Country: Canada Released: 2003 More: Electro CD
Text ©2009 Arcane Candy
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