This is the second collaboration between these two iconoclasts, the first being last year's too-short Tinnitus Vu: the duo's hiss-laden meditation on hearing loss and the dynamics of sound after sound stops.Tocsin works within a similar sound palette, becoming a longer group of compositions that are also more minimal. Tinnitusfeatured conceptually efficient sonic pile-ups: alienating meshes ofcrisp percussive noodling and phantom piano, reorganized digitally byZ'ev to the level of sonic negation, the music itself slipping behind aveneer of white noise emptiness. Tocsin again finds Jackmanbehind the piano and Z'ev operating some resonant steel instrument, butthe playing, even after the individual artist mixes (Z'ev for the firstseven tracks, "-6" through "0," and Jackman for the final "1" and "2"),feels like more of a trade-off: a see-saw between two more distinctvoices. An unhurried atmosphere prevails; the musicians content tomeander through what feels more like an impromptu jam session thananything else: Z'ev winding out steely, gong-like drones as Jackmanlets his chords fall in a determined and mournful slowness. Both thelength of these sessions and their haphazard result strike me as veryatypical of Organum, but it is admittedly pleasing to hear Jackman inan environment where not every second counts. The recording itself alsofeels immediately more intimate than the prior collaboration orJackman's work as a whole. It has been consciously edited with bits ofthe duo chatting amidst a prevailing amount of tape hiss that sounds atfirst like the by-product of poor equipment but which evolves intoprecise and manufactured intervals. Z'ev's tracks especially utilizethe tape sound to flesh out an ironic foreign quality in theinstrumental dialogue, freeing it from a real time perception. Hestretches Jackman's piano into echoed calls and distant moans,entwining along a cascade of scraped, rubbed drones and hollow chorusesof soothing feedback. This is the least abrasive music I've heard fromZ'ev, lacking any percussive punch or even the textural maneuverabilityof Tinnitus. Organum's two private mixes are much less complex,the first almost 15 minutes of barren piano sketches with perfectlydistant gong-like decays matching the piano's desperate march forward.Jackman's second and final track is almost identical, untreated pianoup-front with untreated metal washes this time in slow and gentlecrescendo until both drift into silence. If anything here comes closestto replicating the original performances it is Jackman's section,beautifully recorded and a real pleasure despite its one-dimensionalityand its relative inconsistency with the artist's successes to date.While not a benchmark in the history of either artist, Tocsinallows a view of both moving in slightly different currents than theyare accustomed, and the disc is important despite the lack of a moreconcise collaborative product. It's nice also to see that Die Stadt iscontinuing to press reasonably priced Organum CDs; hopefully this willcontinue. samples:
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