This album is dedicated to both our grandmothers: the Jewish Leah and the Hungarian Valeria. At one point in history they both lived in close proximity in the heart of Europe. There they experienced that dark period in history that caused a seemingly unbridgeable gorge. Yet here we are, the grandchildren, coming together to create an auditive memorandum.
The theme of this albums address the dark energy that overwhelms Europe time and time again. Like seedlings emerging from a blackened scorched forest floor, darkness is the place from which we must and will ascend to create.
A review written by Johan Giglot for Kwadratuur (
www.kwadratuur.be) a Belgian music magazine. Translation:
It does not sound immediately cheerful, this project name. The title, however, refers to a group (different people relating to each other) that is affected in an impromptu 'dark' (in an improvising, vacuum space).
Blanka Pesja - conceptual art teacher at the Conservatory of Amsterdam - and Gal Aner, master of the Art of Sound department of the Conservatory of The Hague, together went in search of the relationship between language, musical instruments and an electronic environment. In a trivial relationship each element seems to reinforce the other, or stressing it. For their experimental project 'Body with Drawing " they enriched acoustic improvisations of the Christian Pabst Trio with electronic soundscapes and poetic text snippets. That's a mouthful.
'Body with Drawing' is actually a graphically very beautiful poem book with a lot of black colors and striking lines of text. The whole is a paragon of expressionist, instrumental poetry. Central to this album is the CD of the project itself. Which consists of two long passages, both of quite different coloring.
The first 'Body with Drawing' is the most expressive. Widely shimmering metallic drones with pungent reverb form, as the opening, a sharp background color over which the slowly spoken phrases of Pesja with distorted voice are projected.
Fidgeting percussion and some lamenting, bowed tones enrich the whole while the poet erupts into a shrill witch laughter. Powerful phrases such as "Facing cruel creeps peeping through, seeing through crap ..." resonate. The nearly twenty minute lasting track seems like a constantly moving sound game where guitar, piano friskiness, atmospheric drones, rhythms and samples permanently strengthen or erase each other. Apparently the duo has created an archive of sounds and sound sources to use seemingly in real time and to their own discretion.
All the time something else is added or the overall color is distorted, passing several poems and fragments within the whole. At one time, the emphasis lies on acoustic instrumentation, at other times on futuristic space tunes that embrace phrases like "I'm not an architect, but I love to touch that silent mark".
An up-and-down motion continues. Whispering quiet moments with hazy scapes result in a chaotic noise with guitar and drums ("This general will never surrender"). The majority, however, chooses this sound trip for the quiet atmosphere, that is why in the end DarkEnsemble deserves a place within the ambient music.
Despite a multitude of murmuring and bickering sounds in the background, a kind of abstract minimalism often rules.
Just when the A of art is at risk of being too much elevated and Christian Pabst furiously attacks the keyboard of his piano - ignoring any kind of order - or Blanka Pesja comes on with forced word games like "telling an ancient story with no sorry, with no glory ... ", the duo throttles down.
So the continuous trip of sound and word continues, leaving a trail of mystery and question marks behind.
The second track, "Body With Drawing", sets out earlier atmospheric patterns and processes the leading voice afterwards. It gives a very different, more rustic feel.
The track gets, for example, a striking classical moment of placidity by cello drones and playful piano ascending together to an intense moment of menace. Yet even this longer and more elongated track appears packed with almost indescribable movement.
DarkEnsemble just balances on that edge between academic artistry and musical inventiveness. The premeditation and philosophy tends to the first, the elaboration rather to the second. Whoever dissociates from the intention, misses the point, but gets a very adventurous, improvised trip of three quarters of an hour full of intriguing sounds and motion presented. There needs not be any further meaning behind it.
