The last words on this album are: “Can you tell me about hell?” They are
spoken by Anja Plaschg, who is better known under her moniker Soap&Skin.
The actress and musician can only be heard on the title track, where she
speaks dark lyrics over minimal set pieces. Breath in Definition creates
an apocalyptic musical landscape. At some point, the piece stops and there
are 70 seconds of complete silence – before Plaschg says the
above-mentioned sentence. This is disturbing, but – astonishingly – the
piece is also breathtakingly beautiful. This applies not only to the piece,
but to the whole album.
Ingrid Schmoliner (prepared piano) and Alexander Kranabetter (trumpet,
electronics) – the duo behind Drank – are prominent sound researchers of
the Austrian improv scene, their focus is on experimental music. The pieces
they create combine improvised music, pop, ambient, minimal music, folklore
and electronic new music and they link dark loops and drones with recurrent
patterns, church bell-like, meditative sounds with fleeting melodies and
bumpy beats. The textures are varied and open, and what is always
interesting is what is not played.
The beauty of the duo’s music lies in the fleeting melodies, the repetitive
structures and the sounds that ricochet through empty echo chambers. They
outline the sound architecture and give the music the necessary stability –
as in “Iridescent”, the album’s opener, which sounds like a roughened
composition by Kenny Wheeler. Kranabetter’s polyphonic trumpet floats
weightlessly over broad surfaces, Schmoliner keeps a very low profile. This
is music that could also be released by ECM if it weren’t for the barely
perceptible dissonances in the background, that push themselves more and
more to the fore towards the end of the piece. However, “Iridescent” does
not set the tone for the rest of the album, it’s rather a starting point.
“Min” and “Gitta”, the pieces that follow, are reminiscent of minimal
music, Schmoliner gets more involved in the music. She determines the basic
structure, Kranabetter sets the accents, whereby the trumpet is heavily
distorted. “Gitta”, featuring Lukas Koenig on marimba and effects, has
something of a tricky ambient techno piece. The tectonic soundscapes move
only slowly, but the music’s appeal especially lies in these repetitions
and slower shifts.
The highlight of the album is the aforementioned title track, the piece
that it all comes down to. It’s where gloom and beauty come together most
perfectly, because on the one hand the monotony is almost unbearable, but
on the other hand you don’t want the piece to end. The rhythms are
restrained and stoic, Kranatbetter’s trumpet is delicate but also askew,
Anja Plaschg’s lyrics are desperate and lost, then again they go straight
to the heart.
For fans of 23 Skidoo, Robert Wyatt, LaMonte Young and early Jon Hassell.
Very recommended!
Breath in Definition is available on vinyl, as a CD and as a
download.
You can listen to the album and order it here: