Erik Honoré – Triage / Sidsel Endresen, Jan Bang, Erik Honoré – Punkt Live Remixes Volume 2

Punkt Editions

Two recent releases on the Punkt label find prime movers Erik Honoré and Jan Bang pushing their utopian ideal of sample-based sound collage to greater extremes.

The intriguing collaboration between Jan, Erik and vocalist Sidsel Endresen on Punkt Live Remixes Volume 2 finds them sampling and remixing live pieces from the likes of Jon Hassell, 3 Trapped Tigers, Maja Ratkje, Ensemble Modern and other luminaries, and with the addition of Sidsel’s enigmatic vocalising, turning them into a series of diffuse, minimal atmospheres that give the listener pause to wonder quite how it has come about.

The feel of abandoned buildings, dust-strewn corridors and a ghostly presence inhabits the minimal string drone of opener “Kristiansand I”. Jon Hassell’s trumpet is a barely felt presence and as is quite often the case on this collection, the source material seems to be erased or smudges to a point of diffusion.

Scattered electronic fireworks and a subdued beat inhabit “‘Oslo”. Here, Sidsel’s voice has a lonely purity, her backing hinting at the far reaches of outer space. In fact, it is partly Sidsel’s voice that manages to imbue each of these pieces with a unique atmosphere, as if she is inhabiting different personalities to suit the moods of the tracks. It all feels dusty and scattered, sporadic memories popping up and drifting over the itchy surface.

The source material is very different, some involving strings, some bass and drums; but the deconstruction and reassembly gives them a sense not of uniformity but of familiarity. You know they belong together because of the approach, but the end result is always different. Speeded-up voices and squeezed toothpaste sounds appear on the scuffed cyclical rhythm of “Kristiansand II”, while “Frankfurt II” contains the sort of voices that would appear in the corner of a room in a David Lynch film.

It is a fascinating experiment in what can be done at the farthest reaches of sound and how to render unrecognisable the source material, twisted into extraordinary new shapes. It almost gives you a renewed appreciation for the original material as strings creep up behind voices and old ghosts are stirred briefly into action. Although minimal to the point of abstraction in places, Punkt Live Remixes Volume 2 offers up new perspectives with every listen and is a fine offering in the now-growing Punkt tradition.

Erik Honoré’s ‘Triage’ shares some similarities in its aesthetic, but is a little more self-contained, even though he has taken to using various vocalists to deliver words form the likes of Ezra Pound and Emily Dickinson along with his own texts, delivered by long-time collaborator and interpreter Jan Bang.

“The Bone Setter”‘s spoken-word treatise on the care of gunshot wounds fits in well with the shadowy backing. Both Erik and Jan are on live sampling and for them this is clearly the way forward in music, giving another string to an already overloaded bow.

The choice of collaborators is also key, changing the tone depending on who is involved. The dreamy Spanish guitar of Bjørn Charles Dreyer clashes with off-key piano and smoky trumpet to a disorienting effect on “Prague”, while “Hope Is The Thing With Feathers” finds a slow head of steam building, a rhythm emerging gradually from the dust and heat. There is a feeling of loose moorings, an amorphous world of shadow and intrigue, figures half-spotted through cracked windows; a series of monochrome noirscapes with eruptions captured against lingering wreaths of trumpet.

The variety of voices is important; Sidsel appears here also in various guises and the dreamy croon of Jan Bang lends depth to the sparse litter of the title track. Sidsel’s voice is an amazing and versatile instrument and one that she uses to cater to every whim. Often murky, always mysterious, it is manipulated in different ways and the end result never fails to intrigue.

All of this diffusion makes it all the more surprising when a piece that is almost song-based emerges; “The Cantos” is grounded by Snorre Kiil Saga‘s resonant bass, a whisper of trumpet and scattered fragments of Ezra Pound’s text fluttering in its wake, while the closer “Tourniquet” finds Erik’s words rendered by Jan over a barely glistening electronic backdrop. This enhances the sentiment of the words and gives them a strength belied by the gossamer effect of the backing.

Triage is another work of great care and skill, emotive but not insistent. Both of these albums are able to transport the listener and are constructed in such a way that it feels almost unreal. These artists seem to be working on their own plain and so far Punkt haven’t put a foot wrong. Long may they continue.

-Mr Olivetti-