We have the tremendous pleasure of announcing three new albums by composer Jeff Gburek.
The first album is in collaboration with his partner Karolina Ossowska, who plays violin, ocarina and kalimba on this release. Gburek performs on zither, mandolin, miniature bandura and something called a blue-sky instrument, something new to me. The music is quiet, thoughtful, and meditative. It was a relaxing experience hearing Jeff’s and Karolina’s interplay.
The next release deals with shortwave radio sounds. This is in keeping with the best of experimental music, where one lets the noises speak for themselves. Jeff states:
Flux and Permittivity is a short presentation of my enduring enthusiasm for the shortwave radio as a medium not only for sound-art but as a philosophy of induction. Ezra Pound’s statement that the artist must be an antenna for “the race” comes to mind. And I hope that when he said “the race” he actually meant “the species” and I personally take this to mean “all the life on this planet”– and furthermore, all that lives within us and without us which we with our bios-bias take to be non-living– for I feel, and use the shortwave radio to sense, the cosmos is indeed alive with strange and inexorable energies.
It’s an organic experience letting these sounds grow on you.
Finally, we have a release from Bulgarian label Mahorka. This one, out of the bunch, is my favorite. It’s the sort of experimental music that works well with nature. The rub against the genre is that it can be cold and clinical – not so with Jeff’s compositional style. It’s inviting, allowing you to make yourself comfortable and envelop yourself into the sonic habitat he creates. It’s modern musique-concrète without the occasionally boring academic trappings.
These releases are all worthy and worthwhile listening.
