The last week I was in the United States before heading off to China, I watched MEV (collecting Alvin Lucier with Frederic Rzewski and Richard Teitelbaum, may their names be ever remembered) and Kayhan Kalhor the weekend before. It was an incredible week of music before heading to more surreal surroundings.
Jeff Gburek’s latest album comes at a time where Alvin Lucier, whose mark on contemporary classical and experimental music in general is impossible to overstate, continues to inspire musicians as time passes. It is a ghostly work, at once warm and organic, but imbued with a vibe of a 1950’s-era sci-fi movie.
Jeff expands further on the album at his Bandcamp site:
Apparently, this will be the last ediition of radio works under the Trans-Beskid monicker, and it’s a sumptuous
This will likely be the last edition of radio works with the appellation Trans-Beskid in the title. Although I am still working with radio captures from the summer of 2020 which were made in Poland near the Slovakian border, I have refined my process to include captures from last summer in Romania and Bulgaria and live input form radios here in Poznan on the evening the two pieces were performed. Adding the microfreak synth and adding working with tones derived from the overtone series of the Schumann frequency changes the game entirely. It’s more of a contemplation — which in the etymologies is like putting many temples together — contemplon of earth resonance. There is something in this that involves a 25 year cycle of work with shortwave radios and my plunge into deep listening strategies. As the light of Alvin Lucier leaves our sphere, I can only heave an electro-magnetic sigh and moan at the passing of someone I never met and yet celebrate, with this offering, one whose work helped me feel that same resonance more profoundly. Word up Alvin. Over and out. For those still Earth-bound: the download is pay what you wish, what you can afford, for the next 48 hours.
Jeff, as far as I am concerned carries the torch passed on by Lucier and Robert Ashley. It would be good to see him eventually work with a label which will give him the exposure he deserves.
