Fanny Meteier and Andrea S. Giordano — sorry babe, I have weird legs

'Miniatures in the form of ethereal experiences or sound trinkets; timbres in perpetual morphing from the rawest to the most delicate and the voices, coming from the bowels or from the heavens, interlaced into a single hyper instrument.' There is probably no one better placed to describe their inimitable and unique explorations of sound than avant-improvisational musicians Fanny Meteier and Andrea S Giordano themselves. While the definition of music can be exceptionally broad and all-encompassing, the duo’s first release sorry babe, I have weird legs, is irrefutably focused on sound, Meteier and Giordano using just their voices, electronics and wind instrumentation to create something rather astonishing in its innovation and vision.

Oslo-based, Italian-born Giordano is somewhat of a musical polymath – composer, singer, multi-instrumentalist and improviser, but with voice and electronics always at the core of her artistic endeavours. When not absorbed in her solo work, Giordano can be found working with Alea, a large musical ensemble or one of a number of trios including Skreme Kunst and JUMP, the latter with experimental pianist Pat Thomas; she even curated this year’s avant-garde improvisation festival All Ears. Fanny Meteier meanwhile is a tubist exploring the sonic depths of her instrument, initially within the realm of improvised jazz with Orchestre National de Jazza and more recently, with Timothée Quost’s ensemble Liken – an eight-person orchestra with the sole aim of disseminating living music. Given their similar backgrounds, it’s unsurprising that the pair gravitated towards one another at the FRANTX 4tet residency, sharing an interest in sonic improvisation and the extremes of sound texture.

 sorry babe, I have weird legs should be approached with the understanding that across 16 tracks – some as short as 12 seconds – Giordano and Meteier are pushing the confines of sound using voice, electronics, a flute head joint and Meteier’s tuba.  At just 20 minutes, this work should be listened to as a whole – a voyage through shifting sounds, textures, sensibilities and moods that span the sublime to the downright terrifying.  It is unlikely that you will have heard anything like this before.

The female voice predominates across most of the tracks whether it is screaming, humming, whispering, (almost) speaking. The album is inherently non-verbal and as such is shot through with a childlike spirit tapping into the base human experience of primal urges and sounds. Voice takes centre stage on ‘aØhiUh’, ‘mushroom’ and ‘Inml’ where both musicians sing just a handful of notes. ‘uwu’ shifts the focus to the non-verbal as Giordano and Meteier appear to imitate the way in which babies communicate – noise gestures and pants of assent, while ‘Thomas the train’ is the sound of a child playing you guessed it, trains. ‘eeeliiu evelopped’ continues this aesthetic with distorted vocal sounds and phonetics. Elsewhere, however, this innocence is demolished with shrieks of extreme horror. ‘SFHAHU’ combines static, blowing (flute head joint?) with the barely perceptible distorted sound of evil matched with a terrified female scream. Something similar appears on ‘AÈÈÈAØ’ and ‘AÀÄËÊ’.

sorry babe, I have weird legs is a journey, and it’s most certainly is an extreme one. Prepare yourself and listen here.