VHF Rec.From Quagmire : Habitats in the Wound (US,2005)***°
What I noticed immediately is the very delicate silence on which the songs are built. We hear Dorothy Geller's voice, with strange weird feedback sounds with fingerpicking, with light grey tension distorted guitar drones. Helena Espvall-Santoleri plays cello. Sharon Krauss plays whistle and clarinet on one track. Simon Wickham-Smithplays electronics on another track. James Wolf plays violin on three other tracks, all adding their own colours and spherical details to it. The music from 'From Quamire' is a sphere which needs deeper concentration to get into it. If one does not give this attention, the music at first might work as a slightly warming up sphere which can become threatening, as if something is going to happen, like the experience of a slowly warmed up lobster. But here’s nothing to be afraid of. It all is pretty innocent avant-garde ; it’s just like silent Consciousness. The most beautiful sounds I heard on “Between the Chores”, a whispery song with acoustic guitar and percussion, with very far eastern harmonies of flute? and feedback flute which seems to by Sharron Kraus. But also the metallic sound with acoustic guitar and voice on “A Fathers Vision/Story of Knife” I like a lot, which seem to be done with the help from Simon Wickham-Smith. Behind the whispery curtain, with a deeper concentrationino the music, is revealed a whole world of subtle beauty. Very good !
