Kim Myhr: pressing clouds passing crowds
Hubro

In what must qualify as one of the most unusual recordings in the Hubro catalogue, guitarist Kim Myhr collaborates with poet Caroline Bergvall on the long-form text-and-music setting pressing clouds passing crowds. Created as a commission for the 2016 Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville in Quebec, the work presents Myhr on twelve-string acoustic guitar alongside the incantatory utterances of Bergvall and the playing of the Montreal-based string quartet Quatour Bozzini and percussionist Ingar Zach. Though it's in six parts, the work plays like a single-movement work, albeit one with discernible changes from one part to another. Its largely uninterrupted flow reinforces the work's hypnotic effect, that quality intensified by the repetitive patterns played by Myhr and the carefully modulated delivery Bergvall gives her text.

Though Myhr apparently had the music composed before she wrote the words, the parts fit together seamlessly, the dreamlike quality of the music a natural fit for the stream-of-consciousness character of Bergvall's musings. By default, the voice becomes the primary focal point when it surfaces, the listener naturally drawn to attend to the words and the narrative that crystallizes as they appear. That said, Myhr's music feels like such a natural correlate to the text, one would presume, if one didn't know otherwise, that the two were created concurrently. At the most basic level, the theme of transformation that emerges in her words is mirrored in the way the composition advances through its stages.

The dynamic level at which the piece is pitched is restrained, the subtlety with which it's performed lending it an intimacy that would have been compromised had a loud, confrontational approach been adopted. The presentation doesn't only murmur, however: the third part, “things dispr,” lunges into being with Bergvall at her most aggressive and the musicians matching her intensity with a thick drone, and the temperature noticeably rises elsewhere, too. Yet more often than not, this is a work that insinuates itself into the listener's consciousness almost surreptitiously; listening to it with the lights low and other sounds at a minimum is recommended for the material to exert its semi-narcotizing effect. To that end, the playing of the string quartet and percussionist operates as judiciously placed enhancement than elements that call excessive attention to themselves.

In simplest terms, pressing clouds passing crowds seduces using nuance rather than bludgeons with high volume. Further to that, anyone waiting for Myhr to break out into an extended solo best look elsewhere; his ego as an improvisor is wholly subsumed to the task of bringing the composition to life in the most cohesive form possible, and consequently no self-indulgent disruptions to its development occur. Myhr's acknowledgement of Morton Feldman as an influence dovetails neatly with the project's meditative tone and emphasis on lyricism and fragility.

December 2018