A thought lingers from a stray conversation on the ferry to Salt Spring Island last summer. How we crave the sound of something different, listening to someone’s voice, without necessarily hearing what they are saying. She went to a book club, without having read the book, but just to listen. She was on her way for a tarot card workshop, me on the way to internet summer camp. And yet our conversation ended when her partner pulled onto the ferry with his truck.
In this vein we must ask ourselves, what are we listening for? Kirill Nikolai recently released Solennelle drawn from a performance at the Chapel Performance Space on November 30, 2023. The backdrop of stillness presents an opportunity for us to consider composition as the gaps between silence. In my normal day to day life over the past fall and winter working at night and coming home at 3:30 AM, the common squeaks, thuds, and rattling are not so unique, but I become attuned to much more specific tones and frequencies, the most persistent is a low frequency hum of a dying whale, coming from the Airbus A220 either passing me overhead filtered by the built environment or at work driving past its Pratt & Whitney PW1500G engine initial engine start; persistent in its consistency. The difference of course with Solennelle is the textures we hear are created with intent. Nikolai achieves this using with oscillators, tape, and with clarinet by Selene Vass.
The composition of these elements presents an opportunity to disrupt the cycle of dread one can develop in response to unpleasant sounds around us. There is much to absorb in the 17 minute piece, more minimal than ambient. Focus on the intent while listening may reveal elements that may not have been obvious on first listen. Solennelle is Kirill Nikolai’s first new release in almost ten years. Compared to his previous releases, Letting Go Variations (2016), A Love Theme For The Wilderness (2015, as Still Light), Solennelle reflects a focus towards musique concrete and modern composition, using pieces first developed or composed initially for live performance.
Photographs above and below are from a November 30, 2023 performance at the Chapel Performance Space at the Good Shepherd Center in Seattle, WA. The image above is a modular synthesizer used for triggering oscillators, along with a partially covered mixer and tape deck. The images below are a tape machine/tape loop and a vintage test oscillator. Photographs were taken by Aubrey Gurtovenko.
Listen below on Bandcamp. From the initial release on Falt, there remain a few art edition CDs available for purchase containing vintage map fragments, found negative prints, and other ephemera.
