Annea Lockwood - On Fractured Ground / Skin Resonance

More concreté brilliance from the great Annea Lockwood, now into her 85th year and still seeking out new inspirations and intergenerational collaborations. As the title suggests, this third release for Black Truffle showcases two new works from Lockwood, the first taken from material recorded with Pedro Rebelo and Georgios Varoutsos in Belfast as part of the soundtrack for the 'opera-film', History of the Present, and the second a collaboration with Australian percussionist Vanessa Tomlinson. Lockwood herself might be the only connecting factor between the two pieces, though they are united in their expression of process and intellectual enquiry via sound. Using recordings derived from the sectarian walls that have shaped the landscape of Belfast since the late 60s, 'On Fractured Ground' is perhaps best understood as an exercise in environmental sound and the psychogeographic significance of such dividing structures. There is indeed an ominous feel to the shuffled percussive drones and resonances that does capture the haunted traumas of such a troubled urban setting, as if the ghosts of history are being exorcised from these walls. By contrast, 'Skin Resonance' is lighter in tone, though no less challenging, built from various amplified recordings of the constituent parts of Tomlinson's bass drum. In the end, you don't really hear the drum so much as its player (and, at times, her voice also), and the skin itself becomes reflective of that human interface. Never 'easy' music, so to speak, or even music at all often times, but Annea Lockwood is a master in the kind of sound art that expresses otherwise hidden ideas and truths.