Kutin’s expressive restraint definitely comes into its own when unhindered by constrained dictates of form.
[Release page] Peter Kutin formerly belonged to the Austrian trio Dirac, described as playing ”21st century chamber music.” For this, his third solo outing, he feeds guitars and violin through his laptop and treats them in real time. Ivory opens ”Elsewhere,” out of doors in the fresh air of a city park on a lovely summer’s day, if the voices captured in the breeze are any indication. Conversely, for all the amplitude eluded in their titles, ”White Desert” and ”World Without End” sound stale and stuffy and, like ”After the Plague” and ”Storb” which follow, feel more like the formalist exercises for which Vienna has been known since the days of Schoenberg. Much of this music is said to have been made while working on soundtracks for old silent movies from Austrian film archives, but I get no sense of narrative accompaniment.
Until the onset of the last two tracks, which take up nearly half the album. At over ten minutes each, the Central Europeanly somber ”Sombre” and ”Lonesome Monster” dwarf the pieces that precede them, not only in the length but in ambition, sensation, imagination and pure aesthetic accomplishment. He recaptures the expansiveness of ”Elsewhere” by merging field-recorded atmosphere with flaring, insistent violin and polite, indecisive piano on ”Sombre,” while his ”Lonesome Monster” heaves into increasingly impressive heights as massing organ tones until its head pokes the clouds and unleashes a downpour. Kutin’s expressive restraint definitely comes into its own when unhindered by constrained dictates of form.
Released simultaneously by Valeot is the debut long player by Attilio Novellino, Through Glass—melodic ambient encrusted with hoar frost, featuring an impressive cast of guests from the Italian experimental ambient world including Enrico Coniglio, Alessio Ballerini and Ennio Mazzon and mastered by Peter Kutin.
Ivory is available on Valeot. [Release page]
