eMusic Review 0
Jan Jelinek's early works, particularly his dry, clipped, click-house recordings as Farben, have led him to be tagged as a minimalist. It's true that Jelinek works at an unusually granular level; in his hands, invisible and disembodied soundwaves seem to freeze, crack and pulverize. But since at least 2005, when he released the Krautrock-influenced Kosmischer Pitch, Jelinek has focused his attentions not on reduction but its opposite, layering digital and electro-acoustic elements to create an unusual sense of fullness. Its structure is molecular in nature, with tiny atomic particles whizzing around each other in a pointillist pantomime of volume.
Bird, Lake, Objects is a collaboration between Jelinek and the Japanese experimental vibraphone player Masayoshi Fujita, also based in Berlin. Modifying his instrument in the tradition of John Cage's prepared piano, Fujita affixes his vibraphone with scraps of metal and other objects in order to modify its resonant properties. It's unclear from the liner notes exactly what the division of labor was in these recordings. Beyond the telltale chime of the vibraphone's metal tines, the rustle of shakers and tambourines is the only recognizable instrumental sound; the rest of the music's yawning expanse is a swirl of digital processing and dusty… read more »
