Transatlantic Trance Map: Marconi's Drift
Author: Tony Benjamin
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Musicians: |
Matthew Wright (elec, sampling) |
Label: |
False Walls |
Magazine Review Date: |
October/2024 |
Media Format: |
CD, DL |
Catalogue Number: |
FW14 |
RecordDate: |
Rec. December 2022 |
Over 15 years Evan Parker and Matthew Wright's electro-acoustic project Trance Map has become ever more ambitious. This event represented an astonishing technical achievement: a simultaneous live performance by 13 acclaimed improvisers in separate venues in Brooklyn and Faversham.
Wright's sleeve notes explain the myriad microscopic techno-twiddles required to unify the sound in time: each venue had an audience with a video feed from the other and the continuous 55-minute performance was livestreamed. The music, inevitably, has a multiplicity of textures guided by a schematic from co-composers Parker and Wright.
An opening duo of Parker's soprano sax and Ned Rothenberg's resonant bass clarinet prefaces an acoustic passage which subsides into an extended electronic interaction. Then different instruments come and go, a massive tutti surges, falls, surges … Eventually a minimalist layering of arpeggios, driven by Parker and Rothenberg's circular breathing, diffuses and a mysterious gong closes the piece. It is a complex listen, not least because there are five electronic players and many of the acoustic players manipulate their instruments unconventionally at times.
Watching the livestream video (still available on the Roulette website) clarifies much, though the Zoom-jerking UK end's bleached colours, rudimentary church hall backdrop and heavy jumpers look time-warped from mid-20th century. As part of the ongoing celebration of Parker's 80th year, however, Marconi's Drift is a splendid affirmation of an enduring musical spirit still eagerly confronting innovative challenges.

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