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Not so long ago all my associations with Switzerland were quite primitive: mountains, chocolate, watches, banks. Until the day when I got hold of a "Requiem" CD of the project DMS3. It had a magic self-created package made of wrapping cardboard with an ink-stamped seal. Swiss saxophonist Joseph Frusiant together with Lisa Mueller created a wonderful, serious masterpiece indeed that has nothing to be compared with thought it has already been defined by someone as "swiss-freak-avantgarde-noise". And that most probably must be true here you have a trombone, insane mumbling, percussion, a saxophone, "skilful manipulation of the time and space sensations of the listener" and many other things. But above all is that the music is very sincere and natural as.. the feelings of a madman.
During the first time I only got a part of the first composition, was in an everyday hurry, thus my decisive criteria were if I could successfully cope with the text of the first chapter of my dissertation with this music. No, you can't combine the two things together, you should devote yourself to it to the full.
My personal most vivid impression of the album is track number 6 (symbolic as the Chekhov's ward number 6).
The first was my solid association with painting. I searched and searched and finally here you are! "Child in Berlin", guess by who, by David Bowie himself! A special set of effects: squeezed voice, confiding whisper-incantation, simple piano exercises of a medium talented musical college student, an ill-omened creak of the floor boards (or: of a cracking rocking-horse), interrupted by a strange wind instrument all that gives you a gutter feeling. And it's true so
This is the scene that I had in my mind: a dark child bedroom, everything according to the genre dust partists dancing in the scarce sun rays, harrowed toys on the shelves, hares that have no eyes
and a lonely child in the middle of it. Probably, he was shut in here, or left, or hidden. At first he may seem scared there are so many awful monsters in the child's imagination (one is already creeping up the stairs, another is howling in the chimney). And as the rest of the children do to take defence of themselves (as I did after all) this strange child has thought of all kinds of spells and repeats them ecstatically. A dismal view, but you are not afraid, not at all. The very calm, almost Rakhmaninov-like piano confuses and then you realises it he is not afraid of them, he is glad they are there, moreover they are his only friends!!!
All in all, the tranquil piano themes goes as a "guiding star" through several tracks and arising during the sound chaos as a tranquilliser taken in time.
A charming chap from the forth track is very reliable and thorough. It seems, that that he is "singing in the tune with" the music but the music is adjusting to him, carefully, not to provoke hysterics. It reminds of a soundtherapy in the clinics for mentally disabled people (having written this I didn't know that the idea of the group is therapy, possibility for the mentally handicapped people of Lausanne to express themselves).
The same old friend sings to you on fifth track and is not a bit embarrassed of his awkwardness. He clears his throat, takes some air into the lungs and starts anew. And meanwhile, according to the genre, a new melody is coming into force at the background. It forms an independent pattern that becomes more and more distinct and catching up with the vocals comes to the foreground as the split of personality.
The eighth reminds of the warming up orchestra that I adore since my childhood. This spontaneously created lump of sounds forms its unique unity.
And despite a slight insanity shade of musical compositions you feel neither alienation, not fatigue. These people aren't hysterical, aren't haunted by awful visions, they simply live in their own strange world. The very nobility of the project idea is that the music makes us understand that people who live in another world and who have a different picture of this world are not on the decline.
The question is just who of us is insane.
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amiganatallius |
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