Matthew Burtner: Profiled from Atmospheres
Ravello Records

The six works by ecoacoustic composer Matthew Burtner on Profiled from Atmospheres do, quite literally, draw from earth's atmospheric phenomena but from many other sources too, from winged moths and American elm trees to the movements of dancers from NYC's Time Lapse Dance troupe. On the Alaskan-born composer's sixth release with Ravello Records, each work either makes a compelling statement about our ruinous impact on the world we inhabit or reveals dimensions of it that we're largely blind to as we go about our daily business. Burtner has been honoured extensively for his work, including an Emmy Award in 2020, is the founder and director of the ecoacoustics non-profit organization EcoSono, and holds the title of Eleanor Shea Professor of Music at the University of Virginia, where he co-directs the Coastal Future Conservatory.

The hour-long album's commendable for other things beyond its environment-related themes, foremost being the musical results Burtner achieves. Stripped of their extra-musical layers, the pieces would still be effective on purely musical grounds and register as compelling electroacoustic works in their own right. Stated otherwise, Burtner is always mindful of the message he wants a particular piece to convey but sensitive too to the musical character of the material. Profiled from Atmospheres also impresses for its collaborative dimension. In place of an album created by a lone producer hermetically assembling sound files in a home studio, Burtner's includes contributions from many others, be they musicians such as trumpeter Glen Whitehead and saxophone/percussion duo Michael Weiss and Elizabeth Soflin or the previously mentioned Time Lapse Dance. The composer also plays acoustic instruments on the album, vibraphone on the opening Piece for a Northern Sky (2013) and soprano saxophone on Nocturne (Moth Music) (2012). Profiled from Atmospheres is the kind of project where a piece scored for string quartet and tree acoustics (2023's Arbor) is the most natural thing in the world.

Each work on the album fascinates in different ways. In Piece for a Northern Sky, whorls of Fibonacci-based vibraphone rhythms couple with atmosphere ecoacoustics to evoke the patterns of atmospheric movement in the Arctic. The juxtaposition of the insistently burbling base and the sparkling swell of the pinging vibraphone makes for a mesmerizing start to the release. To create Auroras (2022), Burtner converted the audio recordings of the Alaskan northern lights and its electromagnetic energy into a captivating swirl of electronic sound. Glissandos arc like tendrils and micro-organisms across the shimmering sky in a dramatic evocation that exemplifies remarkable sensitivity to timbre and shape on the part of its creator. Eschewing conventional instruments altogether, Burtner created Wind Rose (2016) by having the members of Time Lapse Dance generate the sound from movement sequences and costumes. The dancers humanize the work even more when their breath vocalizations appear within the ever-mutating sound mass.

Field recordings from NYC's Central Park of the underground roots, trunks, and branches of American Elm trees combine with the string expressions of violinists Bruno Eicher and Sarah Crocker Vonsattel, violist Mary Hammann, and cellist Kari Jane Docter on Arbor. The work's five movements address the life cycle of trees, from the portentous overture “Mother Tree,” pulsating “Trunk,” and plaintive “Canopy” to the aggressive final movement “Stand,” whose hammering accents originated from tree ring data. As reflected in the composer's desire to establish “a sonic safe space for moths to pollinate [by] cloaking them from bat echolocation and offering these most beneficial insects a different and hopefully pleasing sound experience,” Burtner in a very real sense created Nocturne (Moth Music) more for moths than humans. He also designed the music, created in part by him on soprano saxophone and Whitehead on trumpet, to be soft and gentle in keeping with the delicacy of the insect's ears and omitted a regulated pulse to avoid reminding the moths of bat echolocation signals.

August 2024