Antoine Chessex, Francisco Meirino, Jérô — Maiandros

Order and chaos. These two opposing organizing principles do much to characterize what awaits listeners on either side of Maiandros, a heavily cut-up recording of a live concert given just before the outset of the pandemic in 2020. The idea of mixing field recordings and live documents together was occasioned by the lack of “real” concerts and events cancelled throughout the world, and the results move very left of the double genres that make up Maiandros: free jazz and electronic improvisation. Staggering correspondences are achieved between the frequencies emitted by acoustic instrumentation and their electric doubles –  synthesizers and reel-to-reel tape machines.

The moods are also entirely antithetical to one another. On B side of the record, “Tunnel,” there is a low drone that haunts the peripatetic movements of tone and bodies. On side A, the reverse is true, a collage of random blurts, and the distinct sound of someone walking, perhaps offstage?. On both tracks, there is a distant, empty nexus of spaces, an absence both actual and virtual, around which chatter and carefully-edited sources converge, neither, in the end, holding sway. Real-time experience, its gentle sweep of situated listening, is the product of this release, more grounded and measured than any place in the world right now.

Fans of both free improvisation and deep listening will rejoice in the miasmic fog of reality; not the one we so often refer to, but on the reel of the phonograph. Very highly recommended!. To find out more drop in here