Manuel Zurria — loops4ever
Zurria’s homage to his Rome-based forefathers begins with what seems like an attempt to invoke the spirit of Scelsi: ‘Casadiscelsi’ sees Zurria sequence two pieces composed twenty years’ apart – first 1976’s Maknongan, a celebration of bass overtones, followed by the ritualistic Eastern vibes of 1954’s Pwyll – and then combining the results with percussive and ambient sounds recorded in Scelsi’s house. As if to suggest a successful channeling timestretched vocals occasionally intrude on Zurria’s elegant flute as it dances around rich extended electric tones punctuated by finger cymbals in a reverential fashion. Later, the tape loops of the album’s title become most identifiable on Zurria’s interpretation of one of Alvin Curran’s monophonic pieces, ‘Madonna and Child’. A folksy short melody originally intended for female voice is here transposed for flute and repeated irregularly to cultivate new harmonic and rhythmic combinations with each repeated phrase encouraged by the purring of ‘sonic tubes’ and elongated electronic layers.
According to Zurria’s extensive sleevenotes, part of the appeal of this type of music is the degree of personalisation afforded by minimalism’s ‘open’ scores. Pauline Oliveros’ Portraits is perhaps the purest example of this type of “extremely free” composition, its score being in the form of a mandala placing the command ‘stillness/listen’ at its centre before radiating out to oblique suggestions such as ‘dream’, ‘birth’, ‘who am I?’ and ‘memory’. Meanwhile pitch choices are apparently generated from astrological charts of the performer to combine with the aforementioned mindsets to turn the composition into an aural self-portrait. Zurria’s seems dominated by more timestretched voice, this time of his wife, whose tones slowly writhe and twist mournfully hiding the warmer choral, electronic and breathy layers flowing beneath. Next, the hard science behind Alvin Lucier’s ‘Almost New York’ contrasts heavily with the metaphysics of Oliveros’ score, yet achieves greater immersive depth. Acting as another of the composer’s phenomenological studies of microtonal differences, it specifically explores the affects five different flutes have on a pair of gradually sweeping sinewaves to highlight the many different devils to be found in the details.
Two strange works of the Dutch avant garde composer Jacob ter Veldhuis are chosen for the second disk, both featuring strongly his chopped vocal fragments. Over such tapes Zurria attempts to compliment the speedy melodies found in speech, at times coming across like the flute work in Jethro Tull or Focus, but it’s more of a deranged battle with the hacked narration often bearing more similarities to the primitive sampled pop of Paul Hardcastle’s n-n-n-nineteen than the pioneering work of Steve Reich that inspired them. Eve Beglarian’s ‘I Will Not Be Sad in this World’, also requires the flautist to accompany taped voices but this time it’s a smooth flow of overlapping tones based on an 18th Century Armenian folk song. Zurria’s measured accompaniment helps form a glimmering river of calm introspection, proud and resolute yet vulnerable and delicate.
But the most captivating works on loops4ever are curiously from artists usually considered outside the dry academia of modern classical composition. On ‘The Carnival’ Zurria is joined by its composer, sound artist John Duncan, to promote those frequencies enjoyed by tinnitus (although later Zurria’s version of Clarence Barlow’s ‘…Until…’ comes much closer to directly inducing the ailment). Here, Zurria’s flute takes centre stage pitching looped layers of screeching high notes, glassy and shrill, trembling and waivering as they build oppressively into an electronically manipulated internal cyclone of piercing, dramatic stridulations. While Zurria’s take on one of Basinski’s movements ‘in Chrome Primitive’ randomly juxtaposes looped flute refrains to ring out a catalogue of variations from minimal matter, both subtle and surrounding, tranquil and tranquilising.
Once again, Zurria has produced a masterful and generous overview of minimalist composition and the flute’s dynamic range. But listeners are advised to take his offerings in selective portions as such a large serving of a single lead instrument can turn minimalism into a maximal menu uncomfortable to devour in one sitting, ultimately masking the delicate flavours within