Kang continues to show his range and vision as a composer and ensemble leader. Visible Breath is a startling album which takes many of the strands of 20th century composition and weaves them into new musical fabrics, far from imitation and full of innovation. His music hangs like a specter in the room, the notes either merging into each other like a ghost passing through a wall.
The first side of this LP is made up of recordings made in 2008. "Visible Breath" very much comes from the same stable as György Ligeti’s "Atmosphères" but with a more modern Spectralist leaning. Kang is a master of blending sounds together and much like the "Visible Breath" of the title, the notes linger for a moment before dissipating into the next. Stuart Dempster’s trombone comes out of the fog like a motorcycle, powering past but never glimpsed. The whole ensemble changes pitch simultaneously, giving the impression that my turntable is on its last legs (thankfully it’s not!). "Monadology" is starkly different to the first piece and sounds like an Alfred Hitchcock film if it was scored by Morton Feldman. The repetitions, slightly augmented in terms of each note’s length are delivered with sharp, definite precision compared to the gaseous forms of before.
The second side of Visible Breath is devoted to "Thick Tarragon," which is a far more recent recording relative to the previous two on the album and as different as the first two pieces are to each other. They both sound like a completely different composer compared to this. There were comfortable and familiar influences coming through the other two pieces but "Thick Tarragon" is entirely Kang’s own. Plucked strings and tremulous glassy sounds create something that feels centuries old in its rhythm but utterly contemporary in its tonal range.
Along with his new album for Ipecac Recordings (reviewed recently by our own Stephen Bush) and his recently reissued collaboration with Jessika Kenney (which I reviewed), this album highlights why Eyvind Kang is such an essential composer. His ability to straddle the gaps between contemporary composition, modern experimental approaches and something that is actually pleasant to listen to is unrivaled.
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