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SOLOS

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Michael Fischer

Label: Extraplatte
Released: 2002
Duration: 01:06:34
Views: 67

Tracks

SOLOS #1 (for Jimi Hendrix), SOLOS #2 (for Wien), SOLOS #3 (for Cecil Taylor), SOLOS #4 (for Iannis Xenakis

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Album Description

SOLOS
(Extraplatte EX CD 513-2)

reviewed in The Wire Adventures in Modern Music 226, Dec. 2002, London
by John Cratchley
In his explorations of amplified saxophone, Austrian player Michael Fischer has come to favour sonority and texture over structure. These ten solo pieces for tenor and soprano don't dispense with form, however - you might describe them as freeform abstractions of shifting temperament. The pieces break into four seperate solo suites:"Solos #1" comprising two tracks (for Jimi Hendrix), the single track of "Solos #2" (for Wien), the four making up "Solos #3" (for Cecil Taylor), and another four for "Solos #4" (for Iannis Xenakis). "Solos #1" and "Solos #4" are played on amplified tenorsaxophone, allowing Fischer to bring in feedback as an integral component in the sound structure. Not surprisingly the opening solos dedicated to Hendrix are the most visceral and angular. Working with the full gamut of volume, from overblown shrieks to almost silent, breathless sighs, he explores in minute detail the sonic possibilities at his disposal. Where structure is less emphasised, Fischer gets the chance to explore the physical qualities of his instrument. At times, notes sound strangulated and purposely inhibited through lack of air supply, alternated with their overblown opposite. Similarly, he will move breath with grace and languor, contrasted elsewhere with tougher, sinewy contortions. Pitch also shifts continously leaving the listener with very few (and deliberately so) points of harmonic reference. Strangely, this does not render the music harsh or fractured. Instead, it sets up a dynamic progression based on an appreciation of texture rather than form. His interest in electronic music is evident in the dedication to Iannis Xenakis, but that doesn't make him overtly referential or too reverential. Electronics are a source of inspiration more than an active component, and his music is all the more intriguing for it. Amplification aside, he avoids adding electronic extensions to his instrument, yet his music carries hints of the way laptop players "vitalise sound". His sleevenotes also talk of "multiple was to create meaning" and his music personifies the fluidity of this approach. He builds sounds with painstaking detail, only to knock them down and come at them from a different angle in an attempt to capture nuances of mood - the rippling continuum of momentum rather than the architectural certainty of stasis.