CURTIS
CRAYON – Go fetch the madman
(CD,
28angles)
Curtis Crayon enshroud themselves in mystery. No
information released on who, where, what or how or even how many people
Curtis Crayon consist of. Let the music speak for itself. A welcome
commitment and rare harbinger in this world of over-imaged artists and music
videos that tell a better story than the song itself. Remaining anonymous
has become a regular strategy in our world, not only musically but also
politically, what with the total surveillance possibility and profile
targeting that follow your footsteps, capture your picture and the marks you
leave all over anywhere. Or at least any big city you walk in. Personally, I
like the anti-scientology demonstrators that use the masks of Guy Falkes (I
think it is) that have been used in the movie V – Vendetta, but I also
liked the comic that came first. Well, in this world it is also hard to tell
what came first as well. Before this turns into a rant on how bad the status
of the world is (which you may find in this section better versed) let’s
get back to what we started with: let the music speak for itself.
“Go fetch the madman” is tranquil and rooted
instrumental music that verges between pulses and layers of a variety of
keyboard sounds. Perfect to shape your living space and to modify your
mental space, especially in moments of quiet solitude. Next to “music to
listen to on rainy Sunday afternoons” I should label a new box with
“music my wife likes to fall asleep to”, which is definitely a
compliment and a targeted signifier. It means that no the music has a flow
or pulse rather than a mere beat and that they follow an organic route
rather than trying to press something artificial or fractal on the listener.
Of course, these are factors that are working almost completely on a
subconscious basis. In the last years electronic music has explored fractal
and cubic spheres for quite some time, labels specialised on square
electronic sounds that have more to do with post-urban architecture than
breathing, living humans have come and gone. On 28angles, the label where
Curtis Crayon reside, mastermind Greg Headly has released a reworking of “the operation of the heavens”
by Gustav Holst, which shows the interest in harmonically moving and
revolving sounds that can be found there. Even if it is still impossible to
calculate if our solar system is a stable system or not, but anyway. Let’s
not get physics in the way of art.
The nine tracks on “Go fetch the madman” all
consist of a few layers only, of which at least one is a low bass sound most
of the time, that pulses in various straight times (even if it takes some
counting to figure out those timings). Amongst and around this beat a
variety of keyboard layers or simple “noises” like swishing sounds or
crackling sounds are compiled, but – very much like our solar system
(again!) which consists of a few simple ingredients like planets,
gravitation, rotation, routes – the total effect is of astounding
complexity and beauty. Not much is happening most of the time, there are no
melodies to speak of, rather ambiences and surfaces, but just as it is
fascinating to watch the surface of the sea or the stars at night, it is
fascinating to let yourself drop into the pool of sounds of Curtis Crayon.
Less refined and polished to perfection than, let’s
say the deep ambient dub on Nonine records, there is a striking, inherent
beauty in this music. As if there were a big church in outer space with big,
encompassing and uplifting organ music which is being transferred through
space, compressed and drawn out over the aeons of time its travel to our
ears has taken, and now filtered onto a disc, where our ears and recording
systems are only able to make a fifth of what has remained of the original
greatness audible, just an echo that has been caught by some receivers by
chance, but that is enough to give the listener a grand impression of what
can be found out there. Really, it will never stop to fascinate me what some
people can do with frequencies.
