DANI JOSS – shaper of form

(CD, Poeta Negra)

Dani Joss probably has the most abstract understanding of music and / or song of all the artists on poeta negra. Though what has been described as audible abstract poetry by me has been termed painting with air by Dani Joss in the liner notes to his second full album „shaper of forms“. And the title chosen for this record points directly to one of the central questions or issues raised by Joss on this record: whatever the ontological definition of a form may be, and various are possible, there will always remain the notion of tangibility; of something that can be touched or confined or seperated from something else clearly and thereby defines a form. Sound is a quite contrary phenomenon, in as much as it lives and breathes in an endless continuum.

There are opposites of course (soft and hard sounds, loud and silent sounds) but there are no absolute extremes and then no matter how many sources of sounds are playing together at one single point in time, our aural sense will always decipher one continuum of sound. Which makes hearing the basic analogue sense. Terms such as melody or harmony are conventions burned into our neurones from day one, most probably imprinted in our genetical heritage as well after a few hundred years of major/minor chord changes. A heritage which a glorious lineage of artists have tried to break free from in the last one hundred years, but whatever successes they had, they remained within a small circle of interested people and never met the acclaim of the masses.

„After what you explained to me“, a guy I knew once said to me when I played a record by John Hegre to him „I can understand why you are interested in this. But I still don’t understand why you would listen to it.“ Then again, some parts of „shaper of form“ are downright easy and nice, to wounded ears at least. For instance, when the pounding and echoing notes of piano, percussions and other things set in during „of change“, it seems like real big cinema to me. Or the modal changes and expressive notes during the last track „of goodbyes“ sometimes seem so very abstract to me and then they seem like classical harmony to me.

Joss uses various colours – to stay within his own metaphorical range – to paint expressive and abstract pictures, that work with contrasts and continuums. A lonely, cool, late night saxophone will switch tracks with harsh, echoy noise bursts. Background and foreground noises mix and change and dance. An almost funky groove will appear and disappear into the night. Various kinds of samples and ranges are being used as well as the contribution of half a dozen traditional musicians on percussions, drums, cello, cymbals, piano and bassoon and whatnot. A post-postmodern chambre orchestra in its own sense, but basically a one man vision worked out in singularity with the help of modern electronics. Though definitely not an electronica-record, „shaper of form“ changes between electro-acoustic experiments, avantgarde composition and subtle noise drones.