Ghost Trance Solos

LISTEN:
Composition No. 358 (excerpt)

Três composições livres em que Kobe Van Cauwenberghe (guitarras) está no centro. Apesar de ter criado um ensemble que inclui piano, tuba, violino, voz, bateria e saxofone tenor, o chamado Ghost Trance Septet destinado a interpretar "Ghost Trance Music" de Anthony Braxton, Van Cauwenberghe interpreta sozinho, em disco, as notações / instruções dadas pelo compositor. Estas permitem que os intérpretes conduzam o trabalho com igual autoridade em relação ao "autor"; questiona o relacionamento entre solos e improvisação de grupo, sendo que Kobe Van Cauwenberghe acaba por servir como orquestrador virtual através de loops e manipulação electrónica. A oscilação entre autoria e acaso cria, obviamente, infinitas possibilidades que se destinam a despersonalizar o acto musical enquanto simultaneamente o justificam por meio da diversão que Braxton, em última análise, gostaria de instituir na prática.

"The holistic aspect of Braxton’s work might seem to be tested by Van Cauwenberghe playing alone rather than with an ensemble. Yet this does not sound or feel like solo music. In order to generate what Braxton refers to as a ‘field of activities’ for one instrument, Van Cauwenberghe uses loops and live electronics to build up layers of musical material. Parts of the ‘square’ and ‘triangle’ passages were pre-recorded and sampled but the recording sessions themselves were not overdubbed. What is heard on disc, then, is very close to a live performance. Everything develops simultaneously and spontaneously, the non-human agents functioning much as a collaborator might. The sequence of pre-recorded materials is not set, allowing for their random distribution. The guitar lines are entangled with spoken and half-sung phrases that also overlap in No. 255, where notes from the primary melody are given vowels or numbers, what Braxton called ‘Syntactical Ghost Trance Music’. In No. 358 words enter via No. 171 for solo piano, which includes text from an imaginary press conference by a park ranger. There is a warmth and humour to Van Cauwenberghe’s response to Braxton’s Ghost Trance Music that seems fully in keeping with the project’s radical, friendly openness." (Liner notes)