Released six months before
Amnon Wolman's electro-acoustic art song cycle Thomas and Beulah,
Dangerous Bend showcases a totally different facet of his work. Three of the five pieces included here (nine to 16 minutes in duration) consist of pure digital electronics obtained from programming on Max/MSP software. The other two feature instrumentalists, but in both cases, they are relegated to the background, creating drones. Michael Burritt (marimba) in "No Stopping Any Time" and Anton Lukoszevieze (cello) in the title track provide the source material that
Wolman manipulates with his computer, creating complex shrouds of sounds. Except for the general drone approach, there is little common to the source and result -- much like the music of Curtis Bahn, for instance.
Wolman shapes the sounds like a sculptor, breathing movement and grace into sound waves. Resting on the verge of new age, the music rises and falls in large but not overemphasized gestures. Silence plays a key role in "Traffic Circles Ahead" and "Picnic Site." The other three pieces are busier, yet they remain on the ambient side. Very abstract in its means, the music on
Dangerous Bend cannot shake off all of the coldness of the computer, but it still manages to speak to the soul, shifting from reassuring landscapes (including occasional field recordings) to darker, more tormented pastures. This album is less scholarly in form than Thomas and Beulah, but -- paradoxically -- more demanding. ~ François Couture