Gareth Davis returns to Moving Furniture Records with a new work: Becoming. For this new album he teams up with Monika Bugajny. Together they present a mesmerizing ambient drone work.
Becoming is released as CD mastered by Jos Smolders at EARLabs in artwork by Rutger Zuydervelt.
About Becoming
On ‘becoming,’ clarinettist Monica Bugajny and bass clarinettist Gareth Davis explore the idea of slow moving harmony in a serene world of undulating sound.
The duo entwine single sustained tones, allowing the resonant overtones of their instruments to envelope and expand in a search for resolve. Clarinet sonorities, passing chords, and fragments drifting towards distortion in cycles of subtle change that loose the sense of time while expanding with each return.
The instruments question their sense of singular identity, fusing and dissolving into themselves with each interconnected vibration. What emerges is a depth of listening, a music of quiet contemplation and energy.
Bugajny and Davis met through the world of modern classical music, something which can be heard to great effect on Bugajny’s recent release ‘Recytle’ with Machinefabriek. Yet ‘becoming’ finds itself in the realms of drone, ambient, and new age. The music is grounded in early minimalist aesthetics of composers like La Monte Young and Phill Niblock, but also shares the sensibilities of contemporary artists like Duane Pitre, Sarah Davachi, Brian Eno and Ellen Arkbro.
Reviews
Vital Weekly, Frans de Waard
Vital Weekly colleague BW doesn’t like wind instruments, which he calls ‘toothing’ instruments, because they go ‘toot’. My relationship with wind instruments is more complex. I am no particular lover of the blaring saxophone or the sometimes wet farts of the trombone, but I do like the clarinet. There are two on this new release by Moving Furniture Records, seeing a return for Gareth Davis, who worked with Merzbow for this label and also with Elliott Sharp and Frances Marie Uitti; Robin Rimbaud is involved in multimedia works by artists such as Christian Marclay and Peter Greenaway. He plays a regular clarinet, while Monika Bugajny plays the bass version. She’s from Poland, and previously worked with Rutger Zuydervelt’s Machinefariek (Vital Weekly 1392), and soon she will work with Scanner. The information for ‘Becoming’ could be clearer how this music was made. It’s not a straightforward live recording. From what I understand they use fragments of sounds and duplicate these and expand on that. It’s more like a studio work of two people with the clarinet as the source instrument. As such, the instruments are no longer recognisable, and a beautiful density reminds me of Alvin Lucier and Phill Niblock. I recently played music from both again and sometimes found it challenging, the time of the day no doubt being a contributing. There is a big difference between what Davis and Bugajny do, playing a different kind of drone. First of all, there is more difference during these 44 minutes and 44 seconds, but these two composers also employ quite a mellow tone here, almost an ambient, or, dare I say it, a new age-like work. These pieces have a beautiful cadence, like a soft bounce of short loops without the annoyance of listening to loops (or something sounding too much like a loop). Developments are slow and minimal, and here, too, I never had the idea of listening to something that went on too long. It’s both a work of modern classical music as much as it is work from the world of drone music, from the kind of drone music we write about a lot. I think this is a brilliant piece of music, one of the best releases (among so many) on this label so far. It’s elegant, drone-like. Ambient, not too smooth, never even close to harsh, and a work to play at both low and high volume, it still works wonderfully well. (FdW)
CD limited to 200 copies or digital available in our webshop
Or find the album in your preferred streaming service here: https://orcd.co/gareth_and_monika_becoming
Gareth Davis
Dutch based British clarinetist Gareth Davis’s recordings, projects, and performances feature eclectic musical tastes ranging from contemporary classical and orchestral music to free improvisation, rock, noise, and electronica.
He has performed world premieres by, among others, Chaya Czernowin, Bernhard Lang, Toshio Hosokawa and Jonathan Harvey, collaborates as a soloist with orchestras such as the SWR Symphony Orchestra, the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra and the Orquesta de la Comunidad de Madrid, collaborates with groups and performers ranging from the Neue Vocalsolisten and the Ardij Quartet to improvisers Elliott Sharp and Frances Marie Uitti electronic artists Robin Rimbaud and Merzbow, and is involved in multimedia works by artists such as Christian Marclay and Peter Greenaway.
Monika Bugajny
Monika Bugajny is a Polish clarinettist and teacher. She has previously worked with Rutger Zuydervelt (Machinefabriek), and has works coming up with Robin Rimbaud (Scanner).
