Lasse Marc Riek — Harbour
Each track focuses in on a particular sound Riek wanted to capture. For example, the first track is dedicated to the dull, stubborn, clanking grunts of what can only be a massive piece of thick metal, likely part of some central structural element of the harbor. Every couple seconds, a couple rattling pops describes in coded, abstract language the strain the metal undergoes. It's possible Riek himself is tapping or hitting the metal periodically, and that he is creating the rhythm.
We get a lot of indistinct thudding and rustling on the next couple tracks, like someone was moving the microphone around. Considering the chosen location, I would expect more wood and water sounds. Listening to this part of the album, I find myself instead directing my attention to the noise floor, which is peppered with distant bird calls, and hints as to the nature of the greater acoustic space, which has a very peaceful energy about it.
This brings me to my biggest complaint about this disk, which is that it is not particularly well recorded. These recordings cannot match the hallucinatory, revelatory clarity of artists such as Chris Watson. In the best albums of field recordings, the listener rediscovers the world around them, and hears dimensions they never knew existed. "Harbour" achieves this in some ways, but I feel many omnipresent sounds of the harbor environment that I love are scarcely audible in this recording, most notably the water, and the wind.
The later tracks are more interesting, though not necessarily more enjoyable. They are occupied mostly by strange high pitched creaks and groans from materials more flexible than the metal of the first track. "Harbour IV" is almost certainly a recording of ropes, tightening and stretching to the bobbing of the waves. It's marvellous to visualize, but the sound itself has a whining insistence that makes me glad the track is only 2 minutes in length.
"Harbour VI" is simply grating, though it's probably the most fascinating thing to be found here. The intertwining overtones of the horribly strained material (likely rusted metal) being twisted (?) on this track produce exactly the kind of nasty dissonance which prompts people to oil their door hinges. At 7 minutes, it's the longest track on the disk, and the listener may come out of it agitated, yet also having had some kind of transcendent experience.
The final track is a smattering of seagull calls, a sound any beach visitor must inevitably have pondered on at some point, and captured here in all its beauty. If only the entire album were as evocative and emotional an experience as this piece.
"Harbour" is a flawed but thankfully short album, and I find I can easily listen to it from beginning to end if I am in a serene, quiet location. It's not among my favorite albums of field recordings: sometimes Riek's experiments feel unfocused or uninspired, and though there are several deeply interesting moments to be found here, I am not transported (in my mind's eye) to a harbor. Therefore, I recommend it mostly for those with an ongoing obsession with field recordings. I do look forward to seeing the future development of Riek's work, or hearing other past albums that may have turned out better