As we march towards 2020, one of the many things that’s changed in our world are simply things that make sounds. Sure, we have instruments and electronic devices but if you’re a curious improviser then, there’s an ever-growing pile of new options.
Part of this open eared approach also means that the wonderful rich diversity of cultural soup is yet another huge chunk of options. What blend of sounds can be brought together? How can we create a form of unison or tension that almost certainly haven’t existed in the same space before? Music as a form of anthropological discovery.
K-Space where a hugely intoxicating trio of Gennadi Tchamzyryn (a Tuvan throat singer, shaman and instrumentalist who sadly passed away in 2015), Ken Hyder (a Scottish jazz fusion drummer) and Tim Hodgkinson (a multi-instrumentalist who features in several groups include Henry Cow).
The project was named after the astrophysicist Nicolai Kozyrev who coined the term Kozyrev-Space. Kozyrev used mirrors in a series of radical experiments to highlight energy transferal that creates a warp in time and space. Hyder has subsequently stated the work on Going Up was directly influenced by these esoteric theories.
So, as you may expect, the hour-long voyage of Going Up is a completely exhilarating wide eyed voyage. Tchamzyryn’s bassy singing mirages like an electronic component as a huge arsenal of percussive and rhythmic elements weave in and out of field recordings and mysterious textures.
Going Up, rightly feels like eavesdropping into another worldly ceremony. As wild as it is from the outset, the rhythmic blanket continually produces superbly inventive eddies, clusters and grooves.
The last track Black Sky is 16 minutes of completely out-there gloriousness. Out the chaos an almost funky drum loop slips, slides and mutates and ultimately dissolves. After a subtle field recording the whole thing grows into a completely alien transmission that is as breath-taking as it is bizarre. Almost 15 years later Going Up remains totally wild and uncharted.
Find out more about Going Up here
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