SLOBODAN KAJKUT – the compromise is
not possible
(2LP – Wiregloberecordings)
Space is a factor usually
misregarded in contemporary composition, and not at all of any importance in
contemporary rock and pop music. Except for dance music which is made to
measure for dancefloors and Muzak which is made to measure for elevators,
which sounds like a truism at first, but becomes a point of interest as soon
as you turn it around to a question and ask: why is it not an important
factor? Berry Gordy for instance knew that most of his customers couldn’t
afford expensive stereo equipment and that a big portion of them would
listen to his music in their cars, so he made a point of listening to new
singers and recordings in his board meeting room on an old radio. How many
people, music reviewers included, had set the dials of their equalizer to a
nice V-shape? Do equalizers still exist, when all those fance mp3-players
have pre-modelled settings to vary the tone of the sound they transmit, e.g.
theatre, home, office, whatever? Not a lot of them will have the preset
“church”, I guess and I am almost sure it is not in the interest of the
artist.
“The compromise is not
possible” is a one hour piece of music especially composed to be played in
churches. It consists of intervalls with sparse sounds, a female voice,
echoes, and then changing to intervalls made of walls of sound with heavy
guitar riffs and drumming that connect to progressive drone rock from Earth,
Sunn0))) and Nadja.
Most of the time it is nerve-wrecking. But in a very good way. It is more
like blocks of sounds, that sometimes fill the hall (I bet there is an
architecture-historical correct term for the room inside a church, but I
have no idea…) with full force, then silence, then something else. This
else could be a voice, a single blow on the drums, a low high frequency
sound or guitar feedback. The ensuing silence and echo remaining from the
vibrating walls makes the singular parts stand out even more. Then a
distorting scream and more heavy metal. Except for one notable part, where
guitar, drums and voice go into an almost free improvisational frenzy, the
whole piece is very controlled and strict in its lay out. Of course, this is
not only a factor of space, but more of time, but the connex of a church as
designated place for performance and the then expectable listening situation
is what gives the work its extra layer of fascination.
Slobodan Kajkut, next to his
work as artist and serious composer also plays in the noise rock band The Striggles,
who I have accused – next to praising their album as being one of the
finest to come from Austria in terms of noise rock this year - of not going
all the way in working out their potential in terms of extremity. That would
be impossible to say about this composition by Kajkut. Here he is
consequential to being almost merciless. He delivers big blows to the
listener, making them tremble with the vibrations of the sounds, then
abruptly turns of the sound to confront them with a female opera voice
singing lines of notes – a lot for even an audience inclined to be
challenged, let alone one unpreparedly sitting in on the performance. “The
compromise is not possible” was made especially on commission for a
festival of contemporary music that was held in Graz, Styria, in 2005 and
then recorded in 2008 for this album release.
On a final note, the
production “error” of missing labels on the records is not a failure in
my eyes. I haven’t figured out the right order of the sides yet, and I am
sure, I have listened to it in several ways – most of them wrong in the
strict sense of composition – but the effect was always the same:
impressiveness, focused attention, aggravation, thoughtfulness and a certain
melancholia that comes with the spaciousness and the silence between the big
blocks of sound.
