Paul Elwood: Émissions Transparent
Innova

Émissions Transparent is but one of six compositions featured on this hour-long release by Paul Elwood, yet it's a fitting title choice. After all, every piece in some way deals with the invisible character of sonic phenomena beyond the radio transmissions, ghostly apparitions, and ethereal voices that are the focal points of the title work. The release presents a broad portrait of Elwood: most of the pieces are compositions by him (one's by Christian Wolff) and all feature different ensemble groupings, with Elwood playing five-string banjo on much of it. Offsetting the through-composed nature of many pieces are two improvisations by him and percussionist Eddie Prévost.

Representative of the experimental ethos in play is the five-movement title piece, performed by Pablo Gomez on electric guitar with the Callithumpian Consort (Yukiko Takagi, piano; Jacob Mason, mellotron; Mike Williams, percussion; Stephen Marotto, cello; Ross Wrightman, electronics) under the direction of Stephen Drury. Each part explores a different portal through which contact with an “other” side is attempted, the piece as a whole exemplifying Elwood's fascination with the paranormal and interstellar space travel. As a title, “L'ange de l'annunciation. Interlude: Magnificat” might seem rather Messiaen-like, but the electric guitar bleeding through its opening seconds immediately distances it from the output generally associated with the ornithologically fascinated composer. An anonymous Magnificat chorale from the Episcopal 1940 Hymnal works its way into the electroacoustic exercise, which otherwise favours ruminations of a ponderous, haunted, and ultimately delicate kind. Elwood uses guitar effectively in the arrangement but also vibes, cello, and piano, with the mellotron at times enveloping the elements in ghostly fashion. The subsequent “Voiceless Transit” parts company from the first movement in wedding Crimson-oid guitar to disembodied snippets of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin recorded at the 1969 moon landing. Quieter movements alternate with aggressive ones during the twenty-one-minute presentation, with Gomez strafing “Where burns the love that turns it” and “Ombres et Poussière (Shadows and Dust),” for instance, with dissonant stabs and distortion.

After performing with Christian Wolff and Jean-Marc Montera at a 2012 festival, Elwood asked Wolff if he'd consider writing a composition for solo banjo; three years later, Elwood received Banjo Player, which is here played by him on five-string banjo in an eight-minute performance. Prosaically titled it might be, but the piece itself is an encompassing exploration involving picking and bowing, rapid runs, and counterpoint. Complementary to Banjo Player are two 2016 improvs he recorded in London with AMM ensemble member Eddie Prévost. Titled as dedications to Arthur S. Wolff, one of Elwood's composition teachers at Wichita State University, the two pieces pair bowed banjo with bowed percussion and present sound-worlds far richer in timbres and textures than one might expect a banjo-percussion combination could generate.

In being an ensemble work, Plutonic Winds aligns itself more to the title work than the others, even if Plutonic Winds is a vocal setting. The piece came about when Elwood asked poet Albert Goldbarth if he'd write text for a piece about Kansas, where the poet lives and where Elwood was born and raised. Soprano Aly Olson distinguishes the material with her performance, but so too does the percussion ensemble from the University of Iowa that accompanies her. Connecting the work with the title one is a text that identifies the winds blowing across Kansas plains as extraplanetary in origin; bolstering the sci-fi tone are celeste flourishes added by Kelvin Tran to the bright timbres produced by the four percussionists. Ashe County Lament is also a vocal work, albeit one markedly different from Plutonic Winds. In the former, live piano playing by Rose Chancler merges with Elwood's electronic manipulations of the recorded voice of Carrie Fridley singing the Appalachian folk tune “The Girl I Left Behind,” the result an unusual hybrid of folk music and experimental sound design.

April 2019