Pitchfork
68
Contemporary classical music and remix culture have not always been natural partners. Remix albums dedicated to pieces by Steve Reich or Philip Glass often sound more dutiful than imaginative—despite the fact that the minimalist school of composition has inspired countless approaches to electronic music. It's proved a tough problem to solve, yet the attractive idea of placing beat-oriented classical works in the hands of cutting-edge producers generally ensures that new proposals will be forthcoming.
Timber Remixed is the latest entrant in this field. It carries some familiar drawbacks, but also some ingenious stretches. On this double-album set, the work under electronic re-consideration is a percussion piece by veteran composer Michael Gordon. A co-founder of the influential Bang On A Can collective, Gordon’s approach to polyrhythmic complexity led the minimalist movement into some new territory, starting in the 1980s. His 2009 work Timber requires six percussionists to navigate a wide array of patterns, while each playing only a single simantra—otherwise known as a 2x4. (Their varied lengths can produce different pitches and overtones, a possibility first exploited by composer Iannis Xenakis.)
Still, boards are boards. And the limited instrumental range of a “wood plank ensemble” might suggest a static experience. Unless the composition itself is really something. The consistent feel of discovery that is evident on the 2011 premiere recording of Timber is due to Gordon’s talent for upending expectations. Rich and bizarre tapestries spring up all over the nearly hour-long piece. Pointedly, Gordon’s beat layers don’t build up in a process-oriented way that might help you anticipate what’s coming next. Rhythmically, Timber is a work of jagged surprise—even when this quality is masked by the surface simplicity of the wood-struck tones.
The original release of Timber was performed by the Dutch group Slagwerk Den Haag. Timber Remixed offers two different recordings by the American group Mantra Percussion. On the first disc, a studio recording by Mantra is remixed by twelve different electronic artists. This coterie includes names that are well-known outside the field of new-classical—like Fennesz and Oneohtrix Point Never—as well as underground luminaries like Ikue Mori. The second disc of Timber Remixed presents a complete, live performance of the original piece.
It’s a smart move to append a full performance of Timber to the remixes. In this way, the relative star power of Tim Hecker will guarantee that people actually check out Gordon’s music. Though while it is ably played, the live version here isn’t quite on the level of the first release—which to my ears still sounds like the the best vehicle for the composer’s designs. The live take on Timber Remixed features more sustain, and more bass-heavy pulsation. These qualities serve the composition’s most propulsive passages well. But they also rob Timber of some textural variance. (The original take by Slagwerk Den Haag has a drier sound that makes the piece’s eccentricities stand out better.)
As a result, Timber Remixed is defined more clearly by its remixes. Tim Hecker’s rethink has been billed as a reference to Steve Reich’s “phasing” compositions. And his piece does sound like Gordon as imagined by Reich, circa 1967. But by reaching back to a period of minimalism before Gordon’s ascent, this remix ignores some of what makes the composer’s music distinct. Jóhann Jóhannsson’s leadoff track has a light-touch approach that involves stretching a few drones atop Mantra’s studio playing. It’s an attractive sound, but you’d be just as well served to listen to Gordon’s music straight up.
Composer Sam Pluta’s take, which follows next, shows how much can be gained by discarding the central, wood-tone nature of Timber. After starting out with the collective sound of the simantras, Pluta transmutes and twists the percussion notes into purely electronic washes of sound that still retain Gordon’s melodic patterns. After this feat of filtering out the percussion from a percussion piece and keeping it recognizable, Pluta adds crackling beats back to the mix, for a bit, before closing with harmonics that hit like amplifier feedback.
Other acts with audacious approaches to this assignment include Oneohtrix Point Never and Deerhoof’s Greg Saunier. The former blends in synthesized choral accompaniment; the latter fosters a madcap flow by isolating samples and pushing them to extremes of timbre and tempo. HPrizm’s remix uses quick dynamic shifts to create an unstable, foreboding environment.
Some of the final entries move so far away from the source material that you’d be hard pressed to identify them as Gordon remixes in a sonic lineup. (That’s the case with Hauschka’s entry, which goes heavy on the prepared-piano.) Driving too far afield from all the elements of Timber can seem as unrewarding a choice as expressing undue fidelity to the piece. Though thanks to the most creative works on the first disc, this crossover project still shows that it's able to do justice to Gordon’s work, while also suggesting some promising avenues for future, cross-genre collaboration.
Wed Nov 16 06:00:00 GMT 2016