Veteran American ambient artist William Basinski allies with minimalistic sound designer Richard Chartier for their third full-length collaboration entitled Divertissement, coming via Important Records. By now we’ve grown accustomed to being astonished by the joint works of these vital artists, with few able to match their highly textured, existentialist soundscapes in terms of impact and detailing. Both the 20-minute plus sides of Divertissement advance this fruitful relationship further, building up a dark-wash of shimmering aural stasis which patiently evolves organically throughout the piece. Whereas Basinski’s solo efforts tend to explore the transient beauty of lonely, collapsing loops; the impact of Chartier’s influence results in a more explorative structure.
—bleep.com
+
Important hosts post-digital doyen Richard Chartier for a hermetic collusion with buddy, Bill Basinski, Master of Disintegrality. Divertissement is the minimalist mavens’ third merger, following Untitled 1-3 (Line, 2008) and Aurora Liminalis (Line, 2013). It falls in the wake of Basinski’s Cascade/Deluge and the Three Themes of Pinkcourtesyphone, sounding secular-sacred spaces in between. Their signature styles mesh, coupling across an indeterminate void of shortwave signal and electronic noise filtered against and through each other.
Media (tape loops, shortwave radio, electronics) is, as ever with this pair, meshed with message—embodiment uncertain, too quiet to be ‘noise’; though pitch is elusive, slivers of melody wisp up in mercurial plumes beneath a bit-crushed brume. “Divertissement I” lets a low-end plasma miasma and spectral chorales diffuse in an eerie fug of microtone drone and tessellated tone, some insectoid static traversing the soundfield somewhere towards dénouement to a cryptic end. “Divertissement II” sets out more forward, windier wisps amplified, a choir-esque expanse, then reined in to a more nuanced passage. A murmuration of half-life harmonies ghosts through a welter of electronic dissonance, with distorted radio transmission and helicopter blades a noisy adjunct, fading to dark. Bleakness abounds on this the best of the brace—a piece of great depth and diversity.
Divertissement evokes an arcane atmosphere, spiriting centuries of history from the vaults of a reverberant cathedral in a long-form drift from lowercase liminality and sepulchral ambience to steepling majesty.
—igloomag.com
+
Basinski and Chartier have collaborated a number of times in the past, and their disparate, yet complementary approaches to music have always complimented each other perfectly. An uncharacteristic vinyl release for Chartier (a digital loyalist), these two sidelong pieces embrace both loops and melody, coming together beautifully as a sparse, yet forceful piece of music.
Basinski is fond of using vintage, sometimes obsolete sound sources and a distinctively analog feel to the music he makes. Conversely, Chartier’s solo work may sometimes begin with field recordings or organic sources, but is most often subjected to a distinctively modern, digital toolkit to render the natural sound anything but how it began.
The first piece of Divertissement clearly carries Basinski’s penchant for loops, creating the foundation for a distant rattling noise and simple, yet diverse sound structures that build and dissolve. The duo carefully mix in a fleeting melody that gives a bit of beauty to the otherwise sparse soundscape. The piece may be sparse, but never is it simple or delicate: the understated nature of the piece carries an unexpected force and presence. Big open spaces and deep bass thumps eventually appear, before they end the composition on a spacy note.
While the first side was pretty consistent, the second sees the duo mixing in odd elements that may sound out of place on paper, but manages to work beautifully in their more than capable hands. The piece opens forcefully, with an almost choral tinged expanse of sound that begins powerful, and is then reigned in to a more nuanced, subtle passage. The feel is bleak overall, but Basinski and Chartier introduce shimmering melodies that come and go, sounding as if they come from another world.
The alien melodies remain, weaving in and out of what becomes a wall of squawking, dissonant electronics. A recording of what sounds like a helicopter is added, along with what resembles distortion laden radio communications, creating a noisy, and very Earthbound, compliment to the melody. The result is a piece of brilliant depth and diversity, with the conclusion slowly fading away into darkness.
The worlds of analog and digital sound art come together splendidly on Divertissement, with neither side becoming too much the focus. Instead it makes for a rich, complex recording that uses both beautiful and ugly elements into a work that expertly showcases both William Basinski and Richard Chartier’s proficiency in shaping sounds in consistently new and innovative ways.
—brainwashed.com
+
Veteran composers of deep listening avant garde and ambient music Richard Chartier and William Basinski have joined forces again for this LP Divertissement their 3rd collaborative album the series starting with Untitled 1-3 in 2004. I thoroughly enjoyed Untitled 1-3 finding it a refreshing change from the style and sound palette of each artist.
A lot of William Basinki’s work such as his most famous the Disintegration Loops series is based around repetition of a single tape loop often of a piano or melodic instrument so that a mantra-like ostinato melody is created. His pieces while texturally beautiful are incredibly slow and can be difficult for me to pay attention to. Chartier’s music is if anything more difficult centering around minute shifts in a barely audible world of synthetic digital hums pops and tones. For all his ambition his work has an always had an otherworldly charm and uncompromising audacity for me but can be physically painful.
Neither Untitled 1-3 nor this new record Divertissement have much in common with either approach. The music here is a breathing cloud of intuitive emotional and human feeling melodic ambient drift. It could be constructed from choir samples synthesizers bells or many other things but the sounds have been smoothed and blurred as to make it impossible to say. The textures feel rough hewn and analog; though not harsh they possess a certain tape saturation. The sound is very performative the opposite of ‘calculated computer music’. The sound undulates with a mind of its own.
Perhaps constructed collage style by degrees the sound is full of many subtle peaks and valleys pockets of obscure dreamlike momentum niches and crannies where thoughts may form. Within the layered swells are countless details to be noticed all across the spectrum tiny high pitched pops and chirps whistling resonances bassy rumblings and haunted watery drones. During the 2nd side distant horns or oboes can be heard far in the distance.
Like Chartier’s surprisingly human and heartfelt recent project Pinkcourtesyphone the music on this album has a potent vulnerability and sensitivity and feels like the product of some sleepless delusional romantic fever. There’s a sense both of passion and of distinct discomfort. Though rarely overt with its forlorn melodic tones except for one brief moment in side B I could compare it to the ever romantic and sensitive dark ambience of Raison D’etre but thankfully free of the cheesy rigid string synth sequencing he often employs.
As this music plays the deep mystery of this world is apparent the limitless potential for both positivity and negativity. One feels the echoes of history and all previous generations. In such an expansive and limitless acoustic real it is easier to remember one’s personal cosmic significance. This feeling brings me back to the first time I heard Lustmord’s The Place Where the Black Stars Hang and reminds me of the expressive potential of what might be called ‘dark ambient’ when it is unburdened with callous misanthropy and insincere satanism.
I highly recommend this record to any fan of ambient music or the works of either artist and even to fans of industrial who should find a few comfortingly familiar moments such as the distorted/degraded helicopter sounds and military fanfare buried in the latter half of side B. Basinki and Chartier have channeled the wild energy of dreams and created a universe I once would not have believed them capable of. 5/5.
—musiquemachine.com
+
Not sure if two members counts, but this is somewhat of a minimal experimental electronic supergroup. Master of decay William ‘Bill’ Basinski teams up with Line co-founder Richard Chartier for some introspective, nervous channeling of drifting sound on Important Records.
Seeing as three of the instruments they’ve cited are just forms of media (electronics, tape loops and short wave radio) the actual sonic content is obscure and indeterminate. It’s sort of made of noises, arcing wisps of crushed, fragile sound under which is buried a hint of droning melody. I guess the radio is tuned to 0Hz, the tape loops are empty and a solitary resistor is mic’d up. There’s a piano in there somewhere, but as I said, it’s a super minimal cloud of sound. Some clicks traverse the stereo field, like digital insects guiding the composition to its monastic end. And that’s just side A. Or B. There is absolutely no way of telling which is which.
The other side is much more windy, with the wisps amplified, enunciating low ‘O’ vowels before the radio picks up some machiney feedback – this side is where the fruits are, and saves the record from being too similar to the current minimal electronic canon. —normanrecords.com
+
The minimalist mavens remerge for their 3rd collaborative album of spectral tape loops and electronics following ‘Untitled’ (2004) and ‘Aurora Liminalis’ (2013).
‘Divertissement’ arrives in the wake of Basinski’s ‘Cascade’ & ‘Deluge’ LPs, and Chartier’s latest Pinkcourtesyphone call, ‘Three Themes’, to plumb a sepulchral, metaphysical space existing between their respective projects.
We hear both artists’ closely-related signatures – shortwave radio, tape loops, piano and electronics – filtered against and thru each other to form a slow miasma of plasmic bass texture and intangibly diffused chorales that seem to emanate from and drip down the walls, floor and ceiling in a ghostly film of microtonal drones and spiderweb tones.
The feeling of space is enchanting and as intoxicating as an ancient cathedral, lending a sense of archaeoacoustic exploration to its dimensions of buried samples and slow murmuring reverberations that really put us in our place – shut your eyes in headphones and you could be located in any number of sacred or arcane spaces, drifting from vaulted majesty to womb-like quiet and bunkered ambience, choppers flying overhead.
—boomkat.com
+
Seit der Jahrtausendwende hat sich in der noch weitgehend unerforschten Brache zwischen einer postmodernen Klassik und einer seriösen Beschäftigung mit elektronischer Klangerzeugung ein neues Feld aufgetan. In diesem Niemandsland ragen seither hier und dort einzelne Pfeiler wie Planvisiere aus den undurchdringlichen Schwaden und deuten in ihrer Gesamtheit auf ein verheissungsvolles Konglomeratneuartiger Tonkunst. ”Divertissement” ist einer der sicher bleibenden Markpunkte dieser neuen Topographie. Das zweiteilige Opus vereint die kreativen Ideen von William Basinski und Richard Chartier, die mit Fug als Hauptvertreter einer neuen elektronischen Musik mit hohem künstlerischen Anspruch bezeichnet werden können. Der New Yorker Basinski machte 2001 mit seinen ”Disintegration Loops” von sich reden. Dabei handelte es sich um die Dokumentation eines klanglichen Korrosionsprozesses, indem kurze Soundpassagen auf Tonband scheinbar endlos durch ein Spulengerät geleitet wurden und sich der Klang bei jedem Durchlauf dekonstruierte.
Dass die Aufnahmen am und um 9/11 stattfanden, verleiht der auralen Zersetzung eine zusätzliche emotionale Dimension. Chartier seinerseits arbeitet mit elektronisch generierten Klangphänomenen an der Grenze der Hör- oder Wahrnehmungsschwelle: Offene Flächenklänge, unscharfe Geräusche oder akkupunkturartige Perkussionsmuster gehören zu seinen markantesten Ausdrucksmitteln und durch die Verwischung von klar wahrnehmbaren Begrenzungen bewirken seine Stücke oft ein expansives Raumempfinden. In dieser gemeinsamen, zweiteiligen Komposition wird sehr deutlich, dass die ästhetischen Ideen der beiden – auch wenn sie sich sehr unterschiedlicher technischer Bausteine bedienen und auf komplett anderen theoretischen Grundlagen aufbauen – Teile eines grösseren Ganzen sind. Es ist noch kaum abschätzbar, in welchen vielfältig aufregenden Formen sich dieses in Zukunft manifestieren wird.
—jazznmore.ch
+
William Basinski i Richard Chartier mají na svém kontě hezkou řádku sólových alb i různých kooperací oscilujících mezi ambientem, minimalismem a experimentální elektronikou. Basinski jakožto klasicky vzdělaný hudebník začal svoji aktivní hudební kariéru již koncem 70. let ovlivněný hudebními experimenty Steva Roache a Briana Ena. Jeho první album Shortwavemusic pochází z roku 1983, ale vyšlo o celých patnáct let později jako prvotina u labelu Raster Noton. Richard Chartier je o více než jednu hudební generaci mladší, původně grafický designér a autor zvukových instalací. V minulosti spolu oba hudebníci již dvakrát zdařile spolupracovali – poprvé v roce 2004 na bezejmenném albu Untitled a podruhé v roce 2013 na albu Aurora Liminalis. Jejich třetí spolupráce z letošního roku nese název Divertissement a vychází u amerického labelu Important Records. Autorem obalu ladícího s hudebním obsahem tohoto alba je James Elaine, který pravidelně spolupracuje s Williamem Basinským od konce sedmdesátých let na zvukových instalacích a divadelních experimentech.
Pojem divertissement obsažený v názvu nového alba Williama Basinského a Richarda Chartiera se v minulosti používal – podobně jako italské divertimento – pro lehčí hudební dílo určené pro skupinku muzikantů. Je pravdou, že jejich v pořadí třetí spolupráce je zvukově přístupnější a v pozitivním slova smyslu krásnější než předchozí dvě společná alba, ale k zábavě a rozptýlení určeno není.
Dvě části, každá něco málo přes dvacet minut – zřejmě proto, aby album mohlo vyjít na vinylu, jinak bych si dokázal představit i podstatně delší stopáž – přináší spíše zklidnění, soustředěnost, zasnění, povzbuzení fantazie. Podobně jako v minulosti oba hudebníci používají jemnou elektroniku, piano, smyčky z pásků a dokonce krátkovlnné rádio. Všechny zvukové zdroje jsou dokonale sladěny v tichý, ale zvukově hutný celek. Při soustředěném poslechu a vyšší hlasitosti vystupuje z nahrávky řada změn, překvapivých detailů a jemných hluků.
První z obou částí začíná velmi laskavě až líbezně, ale velmi rychle přejde do dlouhých spodních, zpočátku sotva slyšitelných tónů, tak typických pro oba protagonisty. Motiv z úvodu alba se vrací ve vyšších polohách a rozvíjí se pozvolna dál. Zvuky se postupně zahušťují a vytvářejí velmi rozmanitou a hudebně bohatou ambientní síť, která se postupně mění v temně laděný ruchový zvukový proud. Druhý part je podstatně klidnější a zvukově méně výrazný, povětšinou obsahující spodní tónové frekvence. Až v samotném závěru se opět rozjasní a končí v podobném duchu, v němž začínal
první part. Kdo hledá, v této pozoruhodné nahrávce zcela určitě najde.
—hisvoice.cz
