Alvin CURRAN
Canti Illuminati
FRINGES
Fringes Archive 02 CD 2008

long out of print, this is an overdue reissue of American composer Alvin Curran's third record. Following his involvement in the live electronics performance group Musica Elettronica Viva, Curran embarked on a more personal pursuit utilizing his own voice and a patchwork of minimal synthesizer and field recordings. The two parts of Canti Illuminati show clear affinities to the vocal style of Pandit Pran Nath and Poppy No Good era Terry Riley, while also coming off like a denser version of Takehisa Kosugi's Catch Wave. Curran has had a lifelong affinity to the resonances of foghorns and their sonorities seem to serve as the general underlying drone and pulse of the first section. Curran's vocals, however, are what give the piece its rhythmic push. His tapestry of tape work and synthesizer delays matches the vocal intensity of his delivery; Canti Illuminati pt. 1 ends up most resembling the shimmering dronescapes of late-era Boredoms.

For the beginning section of the second half of Canti Illuminati, Curran brought in a choir; this is probably the least successful section of the disc. That may just be a matter of taste as I generally find chorus' of extended vocal technique to be somewhat corny. However, at about the 10-minute mark of the 24-minute piece the chorus fades away to an exquisitely beautiful extended passage comprised only of Curran's wordless vocals and lyrically minimal piano phrasing. Memorably haunting stuff that devolves at the final two minutes to a little bit of piano improvisation that seems to have been taken from the Great American Songbook. AWESOME!

File under: Electronic | Minimal | Drone