Electro-acoustic music has come a long way since
Iannis Xenakis first rolled Diamorphoses out of the ORTF studio in Paris back in 1957. What took
Xenakis months of work to achieve can now be done -- even surpassed -- with digital gear to the extent that such music can be made live right now, while you're sitting there. In her album
Billows, clarinetist and composer
Carol Robinson creates a continuous 45-minute-long vision of soft tones, slowly growing out of nowhere and returning to the void, sometimes combining in harmonious union and at other times pulsating in a kind of dreamy harmonic conflict. This disc is nothing if not atmospheric; it is almost as if you could build an Aeolian harp out of free reeds, and while you can tell that there is breath in the sounds that
Robinson is generating, you would never guess that a clarinet is used as the trigger. Otto Luening favored the flute when he began his interest in generating "pure" electronic sound in the 1950s, reasoning that its tone is closest to a sine wave. By comparison,
Robinson's clarinet in
Billows produces tone that seems purer than the breathier, sharper attack of the flute, and by exploiting the mellow sound of the chalumeau register she is able to generate deep tones well out of the flute's range.
Billows would be a great disc to meditate to, or as a background to chill out in a general sense; moreover, it's a very fine example of minimalist electronics worthy of favorable comparison to
Brian Eno's "2/2" on the album
Music for Airports. ~ Uncle Dave Lewis