The three compositions on Triptych balance an immersive, patiently evolving soundworld with a harrowing poise and restraint. The aesthetic responds obliquely to the Wandelweiser Collective while evoking the longer shadow of the New York School’s Feldman, Cage and Tudor. With vintage Cold War electronics (featuring UCSC’s E-mu analog synthesizer) deployed in ever-shifting mobile forms, the scores are designed to produce a consistent, replicable overall affect that varies significantly in its particulars from performance to performance.
Bruckmann has often explored the time-honored artistic practice of ekphrasis – most notably with Wrack in 2014’s …Awaits Silent Tristero’s Empire, a rollicking “musical phantasmagoria” in which he transcoded fictional song lyrics from Thomas Pynchon’s first three novels. On Triptych (tautological), the compositions are dedicated to three artists whose works in three media deeply impacted the development of his aesthetics and identity: postmodern American author John Barth, singer and guitarist Blixa Bargeld (of the seminal German industrial band Einstürzende Neubauten), and visual artist James Turrell.
Themes he pinpoints as particularly salient in these artists’ work interact and resonate across the album. Authorship is blurred and narrative reliability questioned via droll, darkly humorous self-critique and arch, recursive structures. Performative extremity manifests in the endurance required to play a notoriously finicky wind instrument for so long, and often so quietly. The interaction of the lone performer with the multi-channel electronic diffusion (particularly in live concert settings) emphasizes spatial dislocation and perceptual sleight of hand.
Bruckmann has often explored the time-honored artistic practice of ekphrasis – most notably with Wrack in 2014’s …Awaits Silent Tristero’s Empire, a rollicking “musical phantasmagoria” in which he transcoded fictional song lyrics from Thomas Pynchon’s first three novels. On Triptych (tautological), the compositions are dedicated to three artists whose works in three media deeply impacted the development of his aesthetics and identity: postmodern American author John Barth, singer and guitarist Blixa Bargeld (of the seminal German industrial band Einstürzende Neubauten), and visual artist James Turrell.
Themes he pinpoints as particularly salient in these artists’ work interact and resonate across the album. Authorship is blurred and narrative reliability questioned via droll, darkly humorous self-critique and arch, recursive structures. Performative extremity manifests in the endurance required to play a notoriously finicky wind instrument for so long, and often so quietly. The interaction of the lone performer with the multi-channel electronic diffusion (particularly in live concert settings) emphasizes spatial dislocation and perceptual sleight of hand.
Track List:
1. A Spurious Autobiography for John Barth, live electronics version (12:05)
2. An Extruded Introversion for Blixa Bargeld (21:22)
2. An Extruded Introversion for Blixa Bargeld (21:22)
3. A Spurious Autobiography for John Barth, oboe/English horn version (10:05)
4. A Fuzzy Monolith for James Tuerrell (21:23)
4. A Fuzzy Monolith for James Tuerrell (21:23)
Released June 1, 2020 by Carrier Records
Supported in part by a Spring 2020 Scholarly/Artistic Activities Grant administered by the Faculty Research Committee, University of the Pacific (Stockton, CA).
Recorded in the UCSC Recital Hall by William Coulter. Mixed and mastered by Myles Boisen, Guerrilla Audio and Headless Buddha Mastering Labs, Oakland CA.
Supported in part by a Spring 2020 Scholarly/Artistic Activities Grant administered by the Faculty Research Committee, University of the Pacific (Stockton, CA).
Recorded in the UCSC Recital Hall by William Coulter. Mixed and mastered by Myles Boisen, Guerrilla Audio and Headless Buddha Mastering Labs, Oakland CA.