P Jørgensen: To
Low Point
Low Point follows strong releases by Celer (Brittle) and Fabio Orsi and Seaworthy (Near and Faraway) with the second album by Copenhagen, Denmark-based sound artist P Jørgensen. In addition to his own contributions (acoustic instruments, field recordings, computer processing), Jørgensen deepens the kaleidoscopic character of the album's material by including sounds of bells, cymbals, accordion, and clarinet produced by a small coterie of guests. There's a discernible arc to the material's development, with it alternating between quieter and louder passages during the first half before gradually working its way towards a peaceful close. Though To is presented as a ten-track album, it's really a single, Celer-like meditation of soothing design that flows from one section into the next, with some asserting themselves forcefully while others opt for a more restrained presentation.
“Giuoco Piano” emerges softly from silence to blossom into a luminous field of droning tones that passes through the brief “At A Loss (Interlude)” before reaching its fullest density in “Blossom.” The sound mass then morphs into an immense swirl of tones and colours (“Variation I”), after which it grows progressively glassier in timbre (“Sakramente”). A break in the general uniformity of sound arrives when a brief field recording of bird chirps and traffic noise arrives two-thirds of the way through (“Solbakken 2006.06.25 3:50am”) before the material becomes once again a dense, blurry swirl (“Variation III”) that slowly softens until it expires (“B-25 Mitchell”). The album weighs in at an ultra-economical thirty minutes, so it certainly could have accommodated being elongated to, say, forty-five or fifty. Even so, To neverthless ends up impressing as a complete and concise statement.November 2009