SET FIRE TO FLAME
Telegraphs in negative / Moths trapped in static
2xCD/ 2xLP, Fat Cat
Sure,
it is an interesting and witty thing to include the surroundings of
recording-situation into the album, both on an artistic level as on an
reflective-intellectual level, but the question is: will this prevent or
enhance repeated listenings? I’d be interested to get a knowledge of how
avantgarde-CDs like this are listened to, anyway. How many do fans buy or
even, are there fans at all? I have a theory that there are a lot of
records, which are less important because of the sounds and the music they
contain, but mostly because of the artistic achievement they contain. An
interesting point in itself, as is the questions raised by the fact that
music, a very lively and energetic form of art that is object to the frailty
of time, is boxed into a concrete form and then stacked as a product - but
this is not the place to ponder about that.
The
Montreal-based avantgarde orchestra – and with a headcount of 13 you might
call it that – called Set Fire To Flames have always included the space
and time they recorded in into their music and albums. Montreal? 13 people?
My first thought was also Godspeed
you black emperor!, Fly Pan Am and The Boxhead Ensemble but we
are dealing with quite different music here (though I have to admit that the
openness and intellectual prowess you need to like this music is also needed
to like GYBE). Set Fire To Flames explore the droning sounds of various
instruments as they interweave with their surrounding, which means anything
from fellow musicians scratching chairs and opening cases to the echo
produced by the huge old barn they recorded in right down to one person
having a phone-conversation with his girlfriend. Which leaves you with very
sparse notes, monotonous harmonies broken with noises and sounds that might
(or might not) draw you into the space and time Set Fire To Flames possessed
when recording this. The noises of people moving, the song of birds and the
sounds of nature – everything that usually gets deleted completely from
musical recordings – plays an important, almost essential part on this
record.
Fm
Einheit from the Einstürzende Neubauten once said: “If I take a shovel
and dig a hole, then that is also music.” Tony Buck made it more concrete
when he said: “If creak this chair by accident, then it is a noise. But if
I produce the creaking on purpose, then it is music.” Go and read “Ocean
of Sound” by David Toop, if you want to learn more. Set Fire To Flames go
one step further, because the prove that all the sounds on the tape, which
includes the hissing-noise of the tape as well as sounds and noises who made
it onto tape by accident, are part of the auditive experience. In other
words: Life and nature have to be allowed back into the artistic product,
not destroyed and swept away.
