Ganesh Anandan, Malcolm Goldstein, Rainer Wiens: Speaking in Tongues: critiques

<<
Speaking in Tongues
CD 25.00 CA$ [?]

pour ajouter à votre panier, cliquez le prix (le prix inclut toujours la manutention et le port par avion)

haut

Critique

par Luc Bouquet in ImproJazz #111 (France), 1 janvier 2005 |2754|

«Les timbres pourront s’entrelacer, les énergies se lier. La musique sera collective, partagée, résolue, déroutante.»

La fusion des formes (ici, percussions sud-indiennes, improvisation et musique contemporaine) ou le risque de sombrer dans le plus petit dénominateur coinmun. Les trois premières plages de Speaking in tongues ne nous rassurent guère: rythme, coloriage, frontières bien protégées, refus de la subversion. Bref plus de craintes que d’intrigues. C’est à partir de la quatrième improvisation (RaMa) que les doigts se libèrent et s’abandonnent: l’acier vibrant, jusqu’à présent trop discret de Rainer Wiens, trouve sa place et s’immisce dans les fissures d’une musique de plus en plus emportée. Le violon de Malcolm Goldstein (jusqu’ici grinçant, déroutant, nerveux et prolixe, ce qui, ou en conviendra, n’est pas rien) espace le silence et s’abandonne corps et âme à l’instant. Plus tard, les percussions de Ganesh Amandan oublieront le rythme au profit de la seule impulsion. Les timbres pourront s’entrelacer, les énergies se lier. La musique sera collective, partagée, résolue, déroutante. L’aventure peut continuer.


haut

Montreal Recordings

par Mike Chamberlain in Coda Magazine #316 (Canada), 1 juillet 2004 |2550|

«… music that speaks to the possibility of an organic fusion of voices.»

Montreal’s very active local music scene is characterized by an independence of spirit and a penchant for experimentation, epitomized best by the Ambiances Magnétiques label.

Two recent recordings on Ambiances manifest the variety of music that falls under the heading of musique actuelle. The first is Risque et pendule by l’Ensemble Pierre Labbé. Labbé himself plays the tenor saxophone and flute, but his sextet is really a string band that features the violin and cello of Nathalie Bonin and Julie Trudeau respectively, the electric guitar of Bernard Falaise, and the rhythm section of Frédéric Alarie (bass) and Claude Lavergne (drums). The music has a cinematic feel - the compositions move from episode to episode, and the instruments seem to “talk” against one another. Labbé uses all the colors that his instrumental palette allows, and the musicians pull off the whole thing with panache.

Ga Ma Ra is the trio of percussionist Ganesh Anandan, violinist Malcolm Goldstein, and guitarist Rainer Wiens, and their first album is Speaking in Tongnes. The interest here is in the interplay among these three mature voices. While the liner notes do not say so, the music appears to be mostly improvised. Firmly rooted in their respective traditions - South Asian, contemporary classical, jazz - Anandan, Goldstein, and Wiens are nonetheless able to communicate quite effectively with music that speaks to the possibility of an organic fusion of voices.


haut

Critique

par Marc Sarrazy in ImproJazz #104 (France), 1 avril 2004 |2470|

«Sa musique prend des tournures insoupçonnées: alerte, ardue, fraîche, gracieuse, inventive, personnelle…»

Vingt et un ans que ce label existe, et toujours cette recherche d’audace et d’originalité. Voici deux nouveautés, deux créations inédites (certains musiciens figuraient déjà dans quelques disques du label)…

Ganesh Anandan, Malcom Goldstein et Rainer Wiens (guitare préparée) forment le trio Ga Ma Ra: le violon virevolte avec ferveur, ectoplasme grinçant et insaisissable, dessine d’étranges figures dans l’espace, des Kandinsky aux angles impossibles, des Miró aux couleurs folles, la guitare à côté se prépare, rature, gribouille avec délice des arrière-plans fissurés, des avant-plans rougeoyants, les percussions esquissent des danses de pluie, des danses de feu, impulsent quelques rythmes de chamans… De cette musique profondément sincère, se dégage une forte impression d’exotisme (à lire en son sens le plus noble).

L’Ensemble Pierre Labbé est un sextet qui unit le leader à quatre cordes (violon, violoncelle, guitare électrique, contrebasse) et un batteur. Sa musique prend des tournures insoupçonnées: alerte, ardue, fraîche, gracieuse, inventive, personnelle, elle se réalise à la croisée des genres, sorte de musique de chambre improvisée. Ceci dit, l’écriture tient une large place dans l’œuvre et, méticuleuse, favorise certainement la profusion d’idées. La finesse du son séduit, tout comme les entrelacs guitare électrique / cordes acoustiques. La première pièce, Outrages, propose maints détours enivrants, avec un son de ténor éraillé, épais et sauvage. Soulignons aussi le jeu de guitare de Bernard Falaise, subtil… magnétique.

Ces deux disques, chacun à sa façon, privilégient les cordes et ouvrent des espaces pleins de vie. Aura-t-on l’occasion de voir ces formations en concert dans notre pays?


haut

Critique

par Pierre Durr in Revue & Corrigée #59 (France), 4 mars 2004 |2443|

Speaking in tongues, réalisé par un autre trio, est d’une essence différente. S’il y a aussi confrontation entre deux instruments à cordes (une guitare préparée pour Rainer Wiens, le violon pour Malcolm Goldstein), le troisième volet instrumental est tenu par le percussionniste indien Ganesh Anandan. La conffontation de ce dernier, issu d’une tradition musicale d’lnde du Sud, avec deux improvisateurs lui fait dépasser largement ses racines, d’autant plus qu’il manipule, outre diverses percussions ethniques (kalimba, peau, steel drum), des tambourins modifiés (préparés en quelque sorte). Son jeu est en phase avec l’approche improvisatrice de ses partenaires, qui font une part importante à des structures assez mélodiques et nourries (plus parhculièrement pour le violoniste) dans des pratiques marquées par les musiques contemporaines.


haut

Review

par Rigo Dittman in Bad Alchemy #43 (Allemagne), 1 mars 2004 |2433|

Auf Speaking in Tongues (AM 118) erklingen die improvisationen eines ungewöhnlichen trios, bestückt mit südindischer percussion von Ganesh Anandan, der'zeitgenössischen' violine von Malcolm Goldstein und der präparierten gitarre von Rainer Wiens. Alle Zeichen verweisen also auf 'Fusion' oder 'Weltmusik'. Die drei virtuosen, von denen Goldstein & Wiens mit Chants Cachés. (AM 066) schon einmal auf Ambiances magnétiques aufgetaucht sind, entziehen sich jedoch diesem klischee, indem sie ganz ohne Eklektizismen oder synthetische 'Versöhnung' einem abstrakten expressionismus frönen. Ethnische oder kulturelle zuordenbarkeit wird durchkreuzt durch reine klangverliebtheit, die mit chromatischen finessen vor allem der furiosen violine und mit Dynamikwechseln insbesondere der nuancierten percussion zu faszinieren versteht, während Wiens string-noise als rätselhafter schatten durch die webmuster irrlichtert. Ein highlight ist das gastspiel des saxophonisten Frank Lozano, der als liebeskranker esel Fra Ma Ga Ra zum kabinettstück an komik macht. Immer wenn sich das abgeklärte Know-how zu der im titel versprochenen pfingstlichen glossollalie hinreißen lässt, beginnt im funkenwirbel der geist derart purer musik zu zünden. In dieser einzig legalen form von brandstiftung ereignet sich als permanenter Geburts- und gärungsvorgang eine 'Neue Musik', die sich ihrer gänsefüßchen nicht zu schämen braucht.


haut

Critique

par Vincent Lecoeur in Octopus #27 (France), 1 mars 2004 |2417|

Quand l’improvisation rime avec plaisir, c’est souvent du Québec qu’elle provient. C’est dans ce pays que le trio Anandan, Goldstein, Wiens, a enregistré Speaking in Tongues (Ambiances Magnétiques). Leur discussion instrumentale est tantôt rythmée et spontanée, tantôt apaisée et chercheuse. Avec beaucoup d’écoute mutuelle, le trio parvient à créer un langage riche qui ne tient pas que dans la variété instrumentale (des instruments indiens de Ganesh Anandan, le violon véloce de Malcolm Goldstein, la guitare préparée de Rainer Wiens). Les espaces silencieux sont préservés tout autant que les élans passionnés. C’est là le trésor d’une langue sans mots…


haut

Review

par John Gray in The WholeNote #9:6 (Canada), 1 mars 2004 |2344|

«But if anyone possesses such magic these days, Weins, Goldstein and Anandan have it.»

If you thought that avant-garde-post-jazz improvisation had vanished forever, think again. Practitioners of the art have always needed to have at their fingertips a combination of incredible virtuosity, an innate grasp of musical form and the ability to listen analytically, even when wailing away on an instrument. In the past, some players revealed their weaknesses in this kind of exercise. But if anyone possesses such magic these days, Weins, Goldstein and Anandan have it, as evidenced on this new CD.

The metallic combinations of the solo violin linked with guitar at times remind one of King Crimson in their Lark’s Tongue in Aspic era, particularly in RaMa. However, this Montreal-based trio strives for more stratospheric heights than anything we heard in 1973. Of the most effective pieces, Fra Ma Ga Ra includes saxophonist Frank Lozano. Anandan’s gentle kalimba leads us into an oasis of peace on the last track, Lullaby.

Ambiances Magnétiques persist in publishing discs in cardboard tri-fold sleeves, for reasons unclear. They’re easily bent or mangled if you pop them in pocket or purse. Nonetheless, it gives the designer a big area to work in. But the photo has the musicians posing stiffly, bundled in winter overcoats with instrument cases slung about them. Surely it would have been more interesting to show us a glimpse of the session itself, with musicians in the white heat of improvisation. Nevertheless, this is a remarkable disc.


haut

Review

par David Dacks in Exclaim! (Canada), 27 février 2004 |2640|

This is a confluence of artists from jazz, contemporary and Indian classical backgrounds. The liner notes describe the similarities between the disciplines: a devotion to rigorous practice, a mastery of all the tonal possibilities of an instrument and a willingness to experiment.Anandan, on various drums, and Wiens, on prepared guitar, play percussive roles while Goldstein will most likely establish the lead voice then quickly shred it while trying to find common ground with the other two. However, everyone gets in on the melodic and rhythmic content — there is no better example than the percolating Twenty Fingers, which starts the album, where no one is the clear leader and all sounds seem to be part of some grand rhythm and harmonic matrix. Wiens also complements bowed violin passages with his guitar preparations to make for smoother sounds to impart glossier textures.


haut

Review

par Chris Kriofske in Splendid E-Zine (ÉU), 18 février 2004 |2333|

«The eight compositions here blend Indian music-inspired open tunings with dissonant free jazz improvisations…»

Despite the title, this is not a song-by-song remake of the Talking Heads’ classic album of the same name, although I can only imagine what this trio’s takes on Burning Down The House or This Must Be The Place would sound like. Much like The Dirty Three, these musicians play percussion, violin, and guitar; unlike those Australians, these Canadians have little use for melody or song structure. The eight (mostly lengthy) compositions here blend Indian music-inspired open tunings with dissonant free jazz improvisations, but this sort of culture clash isn’t as outwardly engaging as you would hope. While the talent and skill that went into making the album is readily apparent, any pleasure derived from these difficult, subtle pieces requires a lot of close listening. It’s like staring at an impenetrably dense painting in a museum and admiring what you see but wondering, “What’s the point?” The trio come closest to answering that question on Fra Ma Ga Ra, where saxophonist Frank Lozano adds some lively, tense honking to a traffic jam of equally frenetic violin freakouts and shards of broken bottle percussive effects.


haut

Soundcheck

par Andy Hamilton in The Wire #240 (RU), 1 février 2004 |2453|

A cross-cultural synthesis recorded in Montreal, featuring South Indian percussionist Ganesh Anandan, violinist Malcolm Goldstein and improvising guitarist Rainer Weins, here on prepared guitar. Anandan plays frame drum, tambourines, metallophone, cheng, steel drum, kalimba and paou. On one track, Fra Ma Ga Ra, saxophonist Frank Lozano is added. On Ra Ma - just Rainer Weins and Malcolm Goldstein, you get the idea - Weins’s clangorous guitar conversing with Goldstein, whose skittering Improv is far remwed from classical violin. On Fra Ma Ga Ra, the guitarist’s beguiling twanglings set off some raw sax from Lozano. Lullaby concludes the CD with Anandan’s metallophone conjuring sounds of great delicacy, and Goldstein’s violin as close to quiet Iyricism as it’s likely to get.

This album isn’t a violent yoking together of diverse traditions. Each musician listens and responds naturally - and beauty combines with sonic adventurousness to make an enthralling CD.


haut

Têtes fortes 2004

par François Couture in Ici Montréal (Québec), 8 janvier 2004 |2320|

En 2003, le percussionniste d’origine sud-indienne Ganesh Anandan a attiré les regards. Lui qui s’activait dans l’ombre d’artistes «world» et de danseurs s’impose de plus en plus comme un improvisateur et un créateur. Deux disques, Imaginaria (un duo de percussions avec Patrick Graham) et Speaking in Tongues (en trio avec Rainer Wiens et Malcolm Goldstein), ont témoigné de ce regain d’activité en 2003. La nouvelle année sera-t-elle aussi chargée? «Je pense que oui!» pouffe-t-il au bout du fil, ravi. C’est qu’il prépare un spectacle solo pour février, qui sera présenté au Théâtre La Chapelle, dans une mise en scène de Guy Laramée, avec projections vidéo de Dominique Sicotte. «Ça s’appelle Ici et là-bas. C’est basé sur l’immigration. Toute la présentation est centrée sur le tambour sur cadre (frame drum) et je raconte entièrement en français.» Le projet promet de révéler l’originalité de cet artiste encore méconnu. Mais ce n’est pas tout. Un nouvel album avec Rainer Wiens, Up North, devrait paraître au printemps. Le duo ira à Vancouver en juillet, après quelques jours à Ulan Bator, Mongolie, où ils participeront à un festival de musique actuelle! «Wolfgang Stryi, le clarinettiste de l’Ensemble Modern, sera notre invité.» C’est qu’Anandan vient de terminer une collaboration avec le prestigieux ensemble allemand, qui avait invité quatre compositeurs d’origine indienne à soumettre de nouvelles œuvres. Le projet paraîtra sur disque en cours d’année. Et ce n’est que la pointe de l’iceberg. Gardez l’œil ouvert; vous croiserez le nom de Ganesh Anandan à plusieurs reprises en 2004.


haut

Review

par Marc Chénard in La Scena Musicale #9:3 (Québec), 1 novembre 2003 |2297_101|

«For open minds and ears, of course, but still a convincing demonstration of how music can transcend banriers in this global village of ours.»

Like the previous disc, the GaMaRa (Ganesh Anandan, Malcom Goldstein, Rainer Wiens) release is also a meeting of varied musical traditions. This one involves a contemporary classical violinist of international standing (Malcolm Goldstein), a jazz-trained guitarist now fully devoted to extended playing techniques (Rainer Wiens), and an Indian percussionist (Ganesh Anandan). These three veteran musicians use no safety nets at all, only their wits and an unerring sense of trust in each other. Over the eight cuts and 51 minutes of playing time heard here (a suitable length for such a venture), multiple moods and textures are explored. While the opening duo, appropriately called Twenty Fingers is propelled by an ostinato percussion groove and a high-flying violin solo, the concluding Lullaby is the gentlest of pieces, with a delicate kalimba rhythm and some of the dreamiest fiddie strokes you’ll ever hear. In between, however, the music veers into much more abstract territory where spontaneity is given free reign. Unlike much of the so-called ‘multi-kulti’ encounters in which musical cultures are stitched together in a quilt-like pattern, here there is a real commitment on all the musicians’ part to not fall back on any well-worn devices, especially so for the percussionist who could have relied on fixed patterns (Indian tablas) throughout. For open minds and ears, of course, but still a convincing demonstration of how music can transcend banriers in this global village of ours.


haut

Review

par François Couture in All-Music Guide (ÉU), 7 octobre 2003 |2286|

«… an open-minded trio eager to shatter preconceptions about how “world music” musicians can be integrated to free improv contexts.»

Ganesh Anandan’s previous projects were mostly seated in the cross-cultural world music field. This album sees him pairing up with two of Montreal’s most textural free improvisers, violinist Malcolm Goldstein and guitarist Rainer Wiens. Both favor sound over note, delicate textures over melodic or harmonic development. It reflects on Anandan’s playing. He rubs and brushes more than he strikes, finding ways to become a third and equal voice instead of providing rhythmic accompaniment. This studio recording presents an open-minded trio eager to shatter preconceptions about how “world music” musicians can be integrated to free improv contexts. A percussionist with South Indian roots, Anandan approaches the genre in a more singular (i.e. non-idiomatic) way than Hamid Drake, who’s frame drum playing always evokes Northern Africa. Anandan also plays the frame drum, but he is more often heard on modified tambourines (they have all kinds of shakers and bells attached to them), metallophone, steel drum, or kalimba. Wiens’ prepared guitar can be seen as an extended kalimba of its own, chiming in unusual ways, but always quietly and serenely. Goldstein is also in a subdued mood, bowing his strings in fragile strokes, but he breaks into a tantrum in a couple of tunes, mostly notably in Fra Ma Ga Ra. Guest saxophonist Frank Lozano also appears in that piece. It brings an interesting change of pace and color, but the key tracks are found in Twenty Fingers, Voyage en train, and Foreign Tongues, where the trio’s identity and originality are most striking. Speaking in Tongues is not the kind of album that will hit you in the face. It requires a few attentive listens to draw you into its world, but the effort brings its reward.


haut

Heard In

par Brian Olewnick in The Squids’ Ear (ÉU) |2477|

«A satisfying close to a refreshing and unusual recording.»

It’s an idea that’s rife with potential problems ranging from purely musical to cultural condescension: wed traditional rhythms from around the globe to free improvisation. Often, you’ll either have one bowing with unnecessary deference to the other or each musician occupying his own space, scarcely deigning to acknowledge the virtues of his fellow musicians. Finding a happy medium is difficult, so it’s all the more satisfying when a recording attempts the gambit and succeeds as often as this one does. Ganesh Anandan is a percussionist not only well versed in the classical tradition of South India but one who has branched out into the study of a multitude of cultures including Cuban bata, Indonesia gamelan, North African frame drums and South African mbira. Malcolm Goldstein, rather unique among improvising violinists, has an unabashed romantic streak and makes no distinction between the scratches and scrabbles of avant-garde string manipulation and “traditional” playing ranging from plangent to soaring. Prepared guitarist Rainer Wiens is a new name to this listener, but he appears to approach his instrument somewhat in the manner of Keith Rowe, as a sound source rather than a guitar as such; in any case, the sounds he evokes are rarely easily identifiable as guitar-based. Saxophonist Frank Lozano sits in on one cut.

Although he seems more than willing to mix it up in a free improv setting, most of the pieces here are built on Anadan’s rhythms that, in turn, bend and flex to accommodate the more abstract explorations of his partners. For the first several pieces, he stays roughly in Indian territory, engagingly prodding Goldstein into some delightful areas including, on Voyage en Train, high registers of bluesiness that recall Leroy Jenkins. Though he often sounds as though playing the role of tambura - so much so that one almost fails to notice his subtle but important contributions - Wiens sometimes comes to the fore, as on his duo with Goldstein, RaMa, and to very nice effect, opting for alluring atmospherics rather than flash. Things shift a bit with the fifth track, Foreign Tongues as Anandan (I believe) plays some sort of tube (breathing and vocalizing into it), the trio venturing into far more unstructured space. Up North partakes a bit of North Africa, Wiens evoking the oud, Anandan’s frame drum echoing far below; its roiling, irregular cross-rhythms serving to create the most mysterious and successful piece here, too short at just over four minutes. Things go a little astray with the following track, Fra Ma Ga Ra on which Lozano sits in. The "loose tightness" achieved by the trio alone dissipates into rather aimless wandering; a pity as Anandan contributes some luscious tones on a metallophone of some unknown provenance. Happily, the disc concludes with a lovely Lullaby Anandan gently stroking the mbira, Goldstein eliciting keening sighs, atonal but poignant. A satisfying close to a refreshing and unusual recording.


autres textes dans

  • Informator “Ars” 2 #38 (Pologne), 1 décembre 2003

Ganesh Anandan, Malcolm Goldstein, Rainer Wiens: Speaking in Tongues: critiques

>>
<< >>

Les prix sont en dollars canadiens — 1.00 CA$ ~ 0.81 US$ ~ 0.64 € ~ 0.55 £ ~ 1.25 AU$ ~ 78.92 ¥ ~ 6.48 SEK — et incluent la manutention, le port et les taxes (lorsqu’applicables).


nouvelles  |  boutique  |  artistes  |  radio  |  liens  |  à propos  |  pour commander  |  english

Page cat@am_118.critiques générée à Montréal par litk 0.550 le mardi 18 novembre 2008
Conception et mise à jour: DIM.

Boîte à suggestions

Idées, commentaires? Erreur dans cette page? Faites-nous le savoir!

Courriel:

Idées, suggestions, commentaires, erreurs:

Liste d’envoi

Entrez votre adresse de courriel ici pour vous inscrire à notre liste d’envoi et ainsi demeurer au courant !