With his first album, This Electric Trumpet, Michigan-based trumpeter Mark Kirschenmann offered electronically processed trumpet sounds, underlaid rhythmically by beats from a pair of turntables. For his sophomore release, the trumpet has become "bionic": according to Webster's, "having normal biological capability or performance enhanced by or as if by electronic or electromechanical devices." He dispenses with the turntables, proclaiming that "[a]n acoustic B-flat trumpet is the source of every moment, every sound" and that he is "taking the trumpet where it cannot, will not, and should not go." No question about it: Kirschenmann is a one-man band extraordinaire. The interaction with popular practice on the first album is lost, and so is a measure of the "trumpet-ness" of the sound. The trumpet only rarely sounds like a trumpet here, but the tension between human and electronic elements is of a different kind. Put simply, this is a virtuoso performance. Kirschenmann's trumpet unleashes an astonishing variety of sounds that coalesce, to a degree remarkable for any electronic composition, into clear formal structures. The climax for many listeners may be the final third of Creatures, Beings and Organisms (track 4), which sounds like what might happen if Louis Vierne had somehow entered a techno club and reacted enthusiastically, but it is artfully set up by several minutes of quiet atmospherics. Each piece has its own characteristic texture, developed over the course of the work: the opening Sparklers, Pinwheels and Fireflies is as pointillistic as the title suggests, while Blowtorch opens with combinations of long, distorted tones, some of them with little glitch-like interruptions, and a counterpoint in which the trumpet does its best imitation of an electric guitar. Other Planes of Where, with its sustained, clear, and indeed rather brass-like tones, forms a sharp contrast with Blowtorch. Hymn 243 is a sort of electronic chorale prelude, and Silver Skyscape a mostly static, gradually shifting set of metallic colors. The sheer variety makes you want to experience one of Kirschenmann's performances in person, just to see how he produces the great variety of sounds that are present here; they're amazing enough on CD or .mp3.
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