Cassette
Fresh London imprint Infinite Expanse make quite an introduction with this reissue of Czech composer, Jaroslav Kořán's 1992 debut, Zahrada. Made with at home with his brother, Michal and an assortment of unnamed friends over a four year period, Kořán describes the record as a "silent music compilation [...] made for fun". Silent music is a fairly on the button assessment, for this is often very quiet music, construced from minimal components and arranged in delicate, artful ways, all of which is chorused by the hiss and glow of extraneous noise - someone possibly left a window open during a good chunk of the recording. There's a strong European tradition for music such as this, something like the more introverted ends of Staalplatt and Korm Plastics (Brume, Brunnen, Stephan Matthieu's Heroin), though you'd certainly not consider this post-industrial or drone in any kind of essentialist manner, the detailing too rich and nuanced to afford such classifications. Mostly it represents some kind of dovetailing of Muslimgauze/OYC ethno-industrial ambience, classic sound art minimalism, Riley's Persian Surgery, and Eno's mastery of space and silence, through it all retaining its own off-the-cuff sense of self. This is where the 'made for fun' description makes sense - brothers and friends leaning into their collective imaginations, possibly with no end goal in sight. High-ceiling-ed DIY art music. There are few finer things.
