Au Crépuscule - REVIEWS
What might appear to be a standard piano/bass/drums trio is anything but. The music on Au Crépuscule occupies a territory somewhere between post-1980 AMM and some of the more thoughtful free improv ensembles of this century, and it's a beauty.
The two tracks, each about 20 minutes long, unspool naturally and at their own leisure; not to say that the music is languid or sluggish, simply unhurried in a delightful way. Any comparisons to AMM begin with pianist Tuerlinckx, a marvelous player who has at least a few things in common with John Tilbury's approach, including a profound sense of submerged melody and overt color. In fact, I'm not sure if there's a moment of "simple" piano keyboard sound here; the instrument has either been prepared internally or manipulated (struck, stroked, etc.) inside and out. Beins in the Prévost role is also not too far-fetched although his own range of coloration, while including those bowed cymbals, is arguably wider than Prévost's in recent years and, as with Tuerlinckx, he has always possessed a subtle, underlying sense of melody or tonality that plays off wonderfully against the pianist. But the glue here, and the element that differentiates this session from anything AMM-like, is bassist Gerigk, who I've not encountered before. Consistently rich in tone and providing not rhythms but pulses, drones and throbs, his notes reach out and grasp those from the piano and percussion, creating a gravitational dynamic that holds matters together in complex and swirling patterns.
The elements in play here are by no means unfamiliar but their deployment is spectacular, resulting in one of the finer, deeper improv sets to be heard in recent years.
- Brian Olewnick, The Squid's Ear -
Au Crépuscule is the debut album of the Berlin-based trio of Belgian pianist Anaïs Tuerlinckx, German double bass player Jonas Gerigk and percussionist Burkhard Beins, known for his work with Polwechsel, Sawt Out and the Splitter Orchester. Tuerlinckx and Beins have worked before as a duo and in a trio with sound artist Marta Zapparoli. The album was recorded at at Saxstall, Pohrsdorf/Tharandt in April 2023.
This trio's format is of a classic piano trio but its sonic vision has nothing to do with the jazz legacy. Tuerlinckx, Gerigk and Beins are fearless and imaginative improvisers and sound artists who keep researching and expanding the sonic range of their respective instruments with inventive extended techniques. Inside the piano and with objects, with unique bowing and percussive techniques and with the transformation of percussive instruments into sound generators. The two, free improvised "Chimères" pieces, mixed and edited by Beins, suggest enigmatic and ephemeral listening experiences that draw the listener deeper and deeper into their alien, fascinating and sometimes even unsettling noisy sounds, hypnotic pulses and suggestive images, with captivating tension and inspired sonic imagination. You may want to listen to these again and again, immediately after the first listening, to explore its almost infinite sonic charms and secrets.
- Eyal Hareuveni, Salt Peanuts -
Limited Edition CD for this rare music, close to AMM's approach, original and authentic, but above all markedly different. At the time of writing, five copies remain on the label's bandcamp account. I'm sorry I didn't write a review sooner, even though I had immersed myself in this fascinating, radical and deeply felt - experienced - shared music with the utmost rapture, but it takes time to write a review. Two Chimères I and II (19:54 and 20:05) during which the three improvisers interpenetrate their curious sounds through those of others, in a search for the unspeakable, a meticulous and introverted exploration of their respective instruments. Anaïs Tuerlinckx plunges with both hands into the bowels of the grand piano, making the taut strings, the mechanisms, the metal frame and the resonance box of her instrument vibrate, squeal and rattle. Jonas Gerigk implodes the resonance of his double bass and the strings against the fingerboard with an investigative bridge. Meta-percussionist Burkhard Beins operates bow, toms and drumstick on a sort of drum kit prepared with percussion utensils and strings stretched over the skins: cymbals and glittering or rumbling metals.
Pianist Anaïs Tuerlinckx evokes the specific percussion of Beins on the keys... and the bow swirls around for a good while like a dervish. An inextricable profusion of sound invades our perception, and we are unable to distinguish 'who's playing what'.While AMM's Eddie Prévost's resonant snare drum and cymbal or tam-tam rubs always stand out from the flow of sound in relation to the other instruments (John Tilbury's piano or John Butcher's sax), the meta-instrumental frolics of Beins-Gerigk-Tuerlinckx cultivate a frenzied interplay with Olympian calm. The precision of their sound, combined with their remarkable variety of timbres, intensities and textures, is a dream come true. Their intense tension focuses our attention without ever betraying any eagerness or the slightest excitement.
With this ultra-polished and radical abstract expression, the three artists go the distance and occupy the auditory field in a very convincing way, without overplaying their hand. Meritorious. A successful musical deepening of the soft-noise reductionist years.
Published by Confront, the label run by Mark Wastell, with whom Burkhard Beins made headlines over 20 years ago in the company of Rhodri Davies in Sealed Knot, one of my favourite trios of that era.
- Jean-Michel Van Schouwburg, orynx-improvandsounds -
Beins und seine spezielle Percussion brauchen keine Vorstellung. Tuerlincks, aus Brüssel nach Berlin gekommen, fand mit ihrem Pianospiel dort Anschluss an Andrea Ermke und als Toggle mit noch Beins. Gerigk, der mit seinem Kontrabass zwischen Köln und dem sächsischen Pohrsdorf pendelt und zwischen Vließ (mit Emily Wittbrodt) und Exotherm (mit Olaf Rupp), liefert mit seinem Projekt 'Livepainting' auch noch das treffende Stichwort. Weil es die echtzeitmusikalische Ästhetik des Trios in Analogie setzt zu Informel und Abstraktem Expressionismus - das Artwork von Sean O'Brien unterstreicht das. Wie sie da Hirngespinste ('Chimères') evozieren, wird schnell deutlich, dass Tuerlincks dafür an präparierte Tasten rührt und vor allem die Innenklavierdrähte als ihr Spielfeld ausreizt, dass Gerigk col legno klappert, knarrt und dröhnend schabt und mit gefingerten Saiten 'murmelt', dass Beins Becken tickelt und mit Krimskrams rumort. Doch ob er mit Bowing Metallkanten oder ob Tuerlincks und Gerigk so Saiten 'singen' und 'flöten' lassen, bleibt öfters mal schleierhaft, obwohl das klangskulpturale 3D und die materielle Beschaffenheit von Metall, Holz, Haar, Draht mit Händen greifbar zu sein scheinen. Schrottige Action verschrottet jeden Gedanken an Abstrakten Reduktionismus, aber tänernes Arpeggio, das 'singende' Metall, sonores Plonken oder zierlicher Klingklang kontrastieren mit solchen kakophonen Ausschlägen. So wie gedämpftes, besonnenes Verharren oder hartnäckiges Sägen dann wieder übergehen in aufquellendes Rauschen, Flirren und raues Harken. Tickelnd, rumorend, mit springendem, kratzendem Bogen jagen die drei dahin. Aber sind sie es denn, die jagen, oder werden sie gejagt?
- Rigobert Dittmann, Bad Alchemy -