Slobodan Kajkut — The Art Of Living Dies...
Before reading it, I listened to the cdr - packaged in a photocopied sleeve - and thought it sounded like aimless (if rigorous), painful, cello wanderings. Two half-hour pieces of minimal, almost childlike melodicism; at best, slightly mysterious, at worst, plain awful and misjudged. After reading the God site, I discovered that the cdr is in fact a promotional copy of a vinyl album; and that the label is home to many high brow recordings of “minimal” and related musics, including works by Alvin Lucier and Morton Feldman. From the site: “Very slow, extremely static, the piece drives into one direction, without specific target but also without tendency to be contemplative. As with some previous pieces…its goal is the pure sense of nothingness…”. Essentially, much the same as my opinion on the “photocopied cdr”, but with a deliberate and affirmative approach.
So, we have two long tracks (albeit one composition) of tortuous cello wanderings, played by Michael Moser. “The Art Of Living Dies” slowly and relentlessly walks through short runs, often patterns utilising three or four notes - sometimes even sounding like incredibly slow trills. At its most minimal, it just picks out short notes from these runs and plays each note in isolation - not that you should imagine that silence plays a large role here: it does not. There’s no sense of space or emptiness - as the spiel says, nothing overtly “contemplative”; the notes are placed close enough to become “knotty” - a dour, beaten march. There is no recourse to extended techniques or production techniques (the cello is amplified, however) - its merely a series of notes played straight, almost ground out. There is no doubt whatsoever, that it does achieve what is described in the quote from the spiel; and after much thought, I’ve decided to label it “curious”. I say this because, in many respects, Kajkut has set out to create a piece that is “unpleasant” and unsatisfying to listen to - and he has done this quite successfully. But, having done this successfully, who wants to listen to it? It reminds me somewhat of the kind of album that gets mentioned in long conversations between “experimental” musicians: “Have you heard ‘x’ - its insane!” Normally, the conclusion of the conversation is that you make a mental note of ‘x’ as something to listen to, but suspect you’ll only listen the once… A bit like explaining Vomir to the average person on the street, who then goes away and listens; concluding: “Wow, it is just noise!”. Saying all that, there is something oddly, and grimly, compelling about “The Art Of Living Dies”. A curiosity…