Best of 2020
Reissue of the Hungarian composer's debut solo outing, originally released in 1987 via the astonishing Leo imprint (Sun Ra, Anthony Braxton et al). Divided into three long form pieces and built around a tableaux of flute, drum machines, vocal samples, bird sound and electronics (grandly labeled 'sound installation'), Szemzö reveals himself a master of the slow and studious - pay close attention; the devil is in the detail here. The monumental, 24min+ opening title track is a hell of a way for any record to start, beginning with an almost Reichian show of tension and release that borders on the ecstatic (perhaps a trick learned from their previous collaboration?) before pausing halfway in to explore more impressionistic, near-cosmic territory defined by a deepy sonorous ambience, and then shifting into a neo-industrial/classical coda that revisits those same Reichian motifs to more intense effect. It's a trip! Nonetheless, it's closer 'Let's Go Out and Dance' that steals the show for me, a deeply transportative flute-driven elegy that's bordering on epiphanous. Am i suddenly levitating? I reference their work a lot (and not without good reason), but i would not be surprised if O Yuki Conjugate were listening to Szemzö. Both are possessed of that same fourth world drift, that sense of music above the clouds, or below the water, or simply parallel. Other. I can't overstate the brilliance of this record. An absolute 10/10 must have.
