Gregory Taylor: Divagate
Palace Of Lights
Three Point Circle: Proximity Effects
Palace Of Lights
A natural companion to 2020's Layered Contingencies, Proximity Effects is the latest collaborative effort from K. (Kerry) Leimer, Marc Barreca, and Steve Peters. Longtime acquaintances, the three apparently first convened in 1980 for a pair of one-off shows in Olympia, WA before formalizing their union four decades later under the Three Point Circle name. As if to affirm the seamless transition from the earlier release to the new one, Proximity Effects opens with “Layered Contingencies,” one of five longform pieces on the seventy-four-minute set. No details about recording locations or gear are included, though guesses could be easily made as to the nature of the sound-generating materials involved. So, as the sole production-related detail indicates that the music was “written and performed by Three Point Circle,” we'll approach an examination of the recording in a similar straightforward spirit.
Representative of the release, “Layered Contingencies” shudders disquietingly as hazy tones, bell tinklings, and surface noise come together to suggest a cryptic transmission from the spirit world. Melodic fragments sometimes push to the music's surface before being quickly pulled back into the thick, congealing mass. While a sense of calm is established, a feeling of omnipresent threat also brings tension to the material, so much that the recording plays like a disturbed dreamstate experienced while awake. A hiss-smeared dronescape of steely reverberations, the subsequent “Illinear” proves as eerie, the visual in this case evoked of frozen galaxial expanses stretching beyond human imagining. Sunnier by comparison is “The Commonplace,” with its calming blend of industrial-electronic burblings and gamelan elements. After the fourteen-minute headrush “Exquisite” dazzles the ear with a percolating stream of glassy textures, guitar clangour, and churning static, “Wet Pattern” caps the release with a slightly less intense mix of gently whistling tones and blurry melodic gestures. As their solo releases reveal, each participant possesses a distinct individual style; in this collective endeavour, however, the three merge into a singular voice, the result of their union haunted soundscapes teeming with atmosphere and texture.
The gamelan dimension that surfaces once on Proximity Effects asserts itself more emphatically in Gregory Taylor's seventh album for Palace of Lights, Divagate, itself the next logical step after the middle chapter in the trilogy, Peregrination (Retinue preceded it in 2019). Like it, Divagate presents four pieces, each one pushing past ten minutes and totaling fifty-six minutes. Slightly more production-related info appears on Divagate than on Proximity Effects, with Taylor having used “acoustic and electronic sources, site recordings, and treatments” to generate the material. As he works for Cycling '74, it's also safe to assume Taylor used its Max application in the production process. He's no dilettante, by the way: he formally studied Javanese Gamelan (electroacoustic music too) and so brings an informed understanding of the form to his material.
The gamelan character is present early when metallic patterns emblematic of the form give “on detours and return (akhir haji)” immediate momentum. Like its predecessor, however, Divagate extends its gaze into other zones, a move that grows apparent when those same gamelan patterns gradually find themselves engulfed by a swelling windstorm until the elements settle into a vaporous mass. As divagate means to stray, the recording's material naturally ventures away from a straight path into other areas, such that “deserted pavilion (menantikan),” for example, eschews gamelan elements altogether for a serene meditation of gently murmuring keyboard patterns. Those metallic timbres do re-appear in the third setting, “a terraced hillside (menghinggapi),” though this time accompanied by polyphonic choral textures and field recording details suggestive of nighttime. The sound design alone is captivating, but the gradual groundswell in animation that attends its development proves engrossing too. While in Taylor's view the concluding chapter in the trilogy exhibits “a stubborn refusal to conclude the circuit with either triumphal codas or a terrain that dissolves into air,” there's no denying “abandoned vestments (kambali)” brings the project to a consoling, peaceful resolution, though one nevertheless abundant in incident and detail.August 2021