“Two sets of improvised music played, Phrozenlight shows that from a single key can comes interesting things”
1 Live Session 1544 (25:32)
2 Live Session 1922 (34:08)
(DDL 59:40) (V.F.)
(Ambient, improvised EM)
Improvised and recorded on the very same day, LIVE SESSIONS is sold as it came from the studio's session by Phrozenlight in a phase where containment was starting for many of us. And no, there are no adornments or artificial gilding behind these two vague ideas of the Dutch musician. Only improvisation whose fruits have that little aftertaste of not enough ripe.
Live Session 1544 offers an ambient rhythm structure that skips over a long cosmic texture woven in minimalism. Composed of beeps, electronic filaments and airs of interstellar whales, the rhythm is originally woven into these elements of a synthesizer which spin like a kaleidoscope effect before bass impulses seize a mathematical musical formula. And it's in this weird texture of merging of sonic trash that the beat flirts with that carefree debonair appearance. A first defective effect appears around 9:19 minutes, making a hitch that gives a second boost to the ambiences while the rhythm now skips on a line of collective hubbub. I hear a keyboard resculpted this morphic processions slightly below the point of paranoia as, stoic, Live Session 1544 continues its sleepy road to reach a point of rational breaking in a hubbub and a brothel for buzzing winds around 13 minutes. This din and sound instability extend to the 18th minute. Moment when the title will reach a false identity in an incoherent continuation where the good moments remain trapped in these excess of harmonic ruptures which too often prevail in these long titles starting from a spontaneity.
It's in a reverberating mass that the concept behind Live Session 1922 makes its way throughout its first 11 minutes. A dissonant first note expands its echo which becomes an element of rhythm fused into an undulation adjacent to the ambient movement of the introduction. The echo effect weaves an endless shake-up whose jerks pulsate to dissolve in the hustle and bustle of Live Session 1922 around its 20th minute. A slow circular phase is born from the electronic effects whose backlashes emit radiations which follow this stroboscopic curve borrowed from improvisations some 2 minutes earlier. This rather seductive phase becomes a storm of oscillations from which will escape a solitary ripple which dreams of a sweet finale, it was almost the case, dragging us into the reveries of orchestral illusions. There or little by little the final of Live Session 1922 will be silent ...
Improvising alone is far from being obvious. Sometimes you have to make some noise to tie up a new idea without the music stopping. And ideas, Phrozenlight had them throughout the two long segments of this LIVE SESSIONS. A concept that has had a few hiccups here, but which remains interesting for those who like ambient music without roots.
Sylvain Lupari (July 31st,2020) *****
Available at Phrozenlight Bandcamp
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