Lost Lights
Michael Rodgers : Twilight, Birds -mcdr- (US,2010)***°
Michael Rodgers released this envelope with silk print with colour photographs showing complex branches with or without leaves and with or without blackbird, and a mini-CDR EP. The photographs very much illustrate the music.
The recordings start with an outdoor blackbird recording. After a while a slow amplified guitar improvisation takes off, repeating found sort of half melodies, played with stretched notes. On the second track, while keeping some natural hiss field recording, this time the guitar forms more melodic improvisation, with a few strangely clustered notes, and still with a several long notes. By the fourth track the blackbirds become more aggressive. The melody on the guitar uses a certain repetitive theme with certain lower notes, like an African earthly rhythmic melody. And then, when hearing the wind blowing in the trees and leaves in the background, I begin to get the picture clearly. The guitar, slowly coming to life, with half melodies, with pattern findings, and with a few clustering notes is imitating the wind in the branches, interpreted from the vision of the guitarist, where the branches in the wind are one in mind with the strings, picked by the composer with likewise patterns and chosen harmonic pitches based upon what he sees, hears and feels. Also the last track shows a broken melody becoming a rhythm, a pattern becoming a rhythm, all in one. The last few seconds I could not play on my machine. I hope this release will become a real CD some day. I like its vision and concept.
