Laurence Crane / asamisimasa — Sound Of Horse

Here’s a pro-CD and package from Hubro, containing works by the composer Laurence Crane, played by the asamisimasa ensemble. The group, six-strong, line up thusly: Kristine Tjøgersen - clarinets, Tanja Orning - cello, Anders Førisdal - guitars, Ellen Ugelvik - piano and electric organ, Håkon Mørch Stene - percussion, and Ditte Marie Bræin - soprano. There’s five works, over 13 tracks, amounting to nearly an hour’s worth of music. The CD comes with a booklet of extensive notes, which perhaps make virtues of the very things I found frustrating with these recordings…

In short, I really couldn’t connect with Sound Of Horse - on barely any level. I’m aware that Crane is a composer of some repute, and the album moves in territories that I enjoy and appreciate, but I’ve really come away from it with nothing. I almost feel as if I’m missing something incredibly obvious. The pieces, whilst all quite different, share common ground in a minimal simplicity and a rather regimented formality. However, what could perhaps be luminescent and warm, feels clinical, distanced - alien, even. As I suggested in my introduction, these elements might make Sound Of Horse an attractive proposition to some - and indeed, as words on paper, they sound interesting to me - but the actuality of listening left me cold. The album clearly has the potential for unashamed sensual beauty (a quality I’ve always liked), but it’s a beauty which is never achieved. There’s an odd coldness to the entire album, a distancing, a plasticity. At worst, there are points which suggest some awful Satie-sampling ambient music. Again, these aren’t necessary criticisms, and ‘on paper’ I suspect this telegraphed banality could be used to persuaded to respect this album, but my ears really found very little joy. The pieces are overwhelmingly slow, and often tied to groupings/repetitions of four: I’ve often found myself waiting for the music. It’s neither a straining or a languidness, but at points more the processes of a clinical, metronomic machine. Again, this is interesting on paper, but not something I’m over-keen to put in my stereo. For some reason, my dominating imagery is of lego blocks and neon lights. There’s a blockiness to the recordings, and a colour-saturated quality which burns bright, both of which present the unavoidable suggestion of an emptiness, a vapidity.

This has been difficult to review, because it really did do nothing for me - and yet I’m aware that Crane has a presence. Naturally, this has led to worries. What have I missed? What can’t I see! But the truth is that there was very little that my ears latched onto. There are moments - the beginning of John White In Berlin, passages of the droning Riis (which does indeed work up some steam in its end section), and the dirge atmosphere of VII. Solemn And Formal, from Sound Of Horse - but for the most part, I’ve simply sat feeling detached from the sound. (Indeed, the only points where my ears have pricked up, have been somewhat comical: a melody in V. Very Plain (Sound Of Horse) that reminded me of a naive riff from my first band, and the opening melody of III. Warm (Sound Of Horse) that seemed to summon the quiet section from Iron Maiden’s Rime Of The Ancient Mariner!) That nod to the leading lights of NWOBHM aside, Sound Of Horse really has left me blank. Whether this is due to a conceptual misunderstanding on my part, or even the production, I couldn’t say.