counting backwards from infinity
by Frans de Waard I Sindre Bjerga I Fabio Orsi
Frans de Waard and Sindre Bjerga are well-known for conjuring intensely captivating ambient dronescapes from rather lo-fi sources, both as solo artists and in their duo Tech Riders. The trio line-up heard on this album, however, came about when Sindre Bjerga and Fabio Orsi were working together for a week as part of the Brombron residency at Geluidwerkplaats Extrapool in Nijmegen. During that time, they had an impromptu meeting with Frans de Waard on 10 October, 2013. We are very happy that more than a decade after the recording, we can now present the resulting album to the public.
As the title implies, this album has a lot to do with changing the perception of time. In the beginning, there is pulse, even rhythmic sounds approaching something like a beat, and there are voices, indistinct but of human origin, no matter in what language - “sound ghosts hidden deep in the molten magnetic tapes,“ as Sindre Bjerga once described his practice. The voices seem to anchor the ever-drifting, pulsing sound in some sort of reality outside the music itself, and the beats seem to be an invitation to keep time, to count forwards. But the longer we listen, the more the beats melt into harmonic flourishes, the voices fade into static noise, the anchor is up, and we are adrift in a cosmic flux in which it really becomes difficult to tell whether time runs forwards or backwards. The combination of sound sources and the beautifully balanced interplay between them make this an extremely rich, colourful example of psychedelic drone ambient by three masterful practitioners of the craft.
File under: drone, ambient, psychedelic
ACU 1070
factory-produced CDr in Digisleeve
Released in 2024
limited to 100 copies
price: 10.00 EUR (excl. postage)
pics by Wilfried Hanrath
design by EMERGE
all music by Sindre Bjerga, Fabio Orsi and Frans de Waard
recorded at Geluidwerkplaats Extrapool on October 10, 2013
mixed by Sindre Bjerga & Fabio Orsi
mastered by Fabio Orsi
Also available here: http://www.discogs.com/seller/dependenz?sort=price&sort_order=asc&q=attenuation+circuit&st
BAD ALCHEMY
Als im Oktober 2013 im Extrapool in Nijmegen „Faded Brown and Grey“ entstand (erschienen 2014 in der Brombron-Reihe auf Korm Plastics), realisierten SINDRE BJERGA & FABIO ORSI auch eine Session mit FRANS DE WAARD. Die kann man nun hören als counting backwards from infinity (ACU 1070), verschönt mit Fotokunst von Wilfried Hanrath. Morphende Dröhnwellen, Diktaphonstimmen, Gitarrensound, knisternde Laute. Gedämpfter Beat, sonores Dröhnen, Saiten beben und jaulen, eine Harmonika zirpt, etwas sirrsurrt. Der 3. Part verdoppelt die dröhnende Zeitvergessenheit, ein Tape zwitschert, Stimmen murmeln, es sirrt, prickelt, surrt. Wie schon Mutter sagte: Ach, Kinder, wie die Zeit vergeht.
www.badalchemy.de
VITAL WEEKLY
For another review this week, I started with the words “I don’t know where to start here”, and well, for this release, it’s a bit different. The artists didn’t know where to start, so they chose the impossible task of “Counting Backwards from Infinity”, but where is infinity? Right, it’s non-existent. So, where do things start? And where does this release start? There’s a lot of metaphysical thinking to be done, and at that moment, you haven’t heard a single note yet. Because If you start at a non-existent point and take it from there, where do you end up? At zero? Or still at Infinity? Or is that a different infinity? Does infinity plus 1 exist? Does infinity minus 1 exist? Minus 2? Minus 3? Does this release exist? It’s so lovely to have a brain like mine … Always on the road …
In 2013, Sindre Bjerga and Fabio Orsi came to Nijmegen, where they had a BromBrom residency at Geluidswerkplaats Extrapool. On October 10th, they met up with Frans de Waard, who is from Nijmegen (and back then, curator of the Brombron project), and they worked on a few pieces. Well, those pieces, recorded 11 years ago, are now available to the public, and it’s this release through Attenuation Circuit. Three pieces (11, 12 and 21 minutes) ‘are simply’ titled “Infinity” minus the tracking number and as paradoxical to what is written before, here, Infinity minus 1 (or 2 or 3) does exist.
The title refers to the concept of this album, which has a lot to do with changing the perception of time. And drone / minimal noise mostly does that to me. When at a concert, closing your eyes, feeling like an eternity and realizing the set only took 20 minutes. Playing a CD with a 70-minute drone and thinking only half an hour has since pressing play … That’s the kind of time stretching I’m referring to. And no use denying it; I KNOW at least some of you feel the same. And if you don’t know what I’m talking about? Try listening to Eliane Radigue’s ‘Trilogie de la Mort’, but don’t do anything else while listening. No working, no reading, no smartphone close-by … Just deep-listening.
And this album, even though it’s a different style than the ultra-minimal drone, enables the same time shift. As well as a sound shift. The longer you listen, the more the sounds change, and you start the journey where you don’t know if you’re going forwards or backward. But that’s because infinity plus one and infinity minus one are both still infinity. And you’re still in a trance-like state on the couch, grabbing your head around the concept of infinity.
https://www.vitalweekly.net/number-1442/
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