URKUMA – rebuilding pantaleone’s tree

(CD, Baskaru)

Lately a bunch of records have been received at Cracked Headquarter that are so much free form and on the fringe, in sound, structure, material and conceptual lay-out, that they are hardly describeable and therefore need, or even demand, very discerning and close listening. Check out the current entries in the review-section to see which ones they are. Urkuma’s aka Stefano de Santis’ “rebuilding pantaleone’s tree” is definitely one of those. And this CD doesn’t open for introspection even after repeated listenings. I could take the easy way out, like those honorable reviewers at Vital Weekly, and give a plain description of what’s happening, and I am sure I will do this in some portion as well here, but there is something deep and undercurrrent at work on “rebuilding pantaleone’s tree”, which is more important and impressive than the surface of sounds and their connections.

The hint that the music contained herein is based on a mosaic the monk Pantaleone built in the Cathedral of Otranto, is of little help, even with the added asinine flute players on the cover. It is good to imagine the sombre, cool and dark atmosphere within a cathedral to get into a mood that is akin to some of the tones on here, but then the sounds are of a very wide variety. Clenched and compressed drones and sounds, the scratching of strings, simple melodies or rows of notes stripped of all harmony, cumulating in a big buzz of static noise (“Achmed Giedik”) always broken and distorted by the sounds of instruments actually played but always against their intended use. Though it has to be noted that distorted is a completely structural term in this relation and no way a judgement of aesthetics, there is something about the sound of water being mangled recorded from within the bathtub or canister (“Panta Nifta Scotini).

A lot sounds freely improvised, and if it were a couple of musicians banding together and recording this album in a single day, the result would have been highly applauded. But obviously de Santis took live recordings and improvisations to his laptop and cut, mangled and re-organized a lot of things. Still, all praise due to him for retaing that live improvisation atmosphere, but it is also good to be reminded, that obviously the circumstances of a recording still matter in the regards of judging the sound. “Have you ever given a musical instrument to an animal?” he asks on the inner sleeve, and apart from those little plastic toys that quak when mangled by a dog or those little balls with bells in them that jingle when being pushed by a cat, I have to answer no. Are we facing a theory like the one with 10.000 apes writing Shakespeare’s work? If so, what does a piece of art mean, when it has been created completely by accident and without sense or meaning? And isn’t that a question regardnig the most basic fabric of human existence? On the other hand one of the last ressorts humankind has to differentiate itself from animals is creativity and art. Animals know no useless art – or do they? With apes “painting” picture it is hard to say and the way things are being defined will answer that question. Music, meaning willfully arranged sounds that have no direct purpose but are meant as art, is still out of step for the animal world.