Jef Mertens - Orchid Alto

Belgian renaissance man Jef Mertens picks up the taishogoto for his latest foray into out-there sonic experimentation, and finds a sweet spot somewhere between the psychedelic majesty of Michael O'Shea, the chasmic-noise of Bill Nace and Jon Collin-like drone reverie. The taishogoto is a relatively niche instrument but, in Mertens' hands at least, produces a sound that won't be entirely unfamiliar to those with a general interest in string-based avant-/drone/noise explorations, be that the Dead C, Alan Licht, Ellen Fulman, Tony Conrad et al. Indeed, the mechanism of the taishogoto, which requires keys to be pressed onto strings in order to change the pitch, is remarkably similar to that of the nyckelharpa, a Swedish instrument recently brilliantly adopted by Jon Collin on his remarkable Bridge Variations LP, an album that's taken up plenty of our time of the past three years or so. In short, Mertens is plugging into a tradition and these are sounds we might half-recognise, though his decision to trade the familiarity of his usual instrument of choice - guitar - for a tool with which he has less experience lends the work an especially energised feel, the sense of an artist excitedly seeking out new possibilities. If the overall sense is febrile and laced with an underlying tension, it also communicates the kind of joy hidden in the thrill of the new.