DREYBLATT, ARNOLD - RESTING STATE (LP)

"Produced at the renowned experimental music studio of the Akademie der Künste in Berlin and with the assistance of his long-term collaborator Konrad Sprenger, Music from the Resting State is chiefly composed of carefully tuned sine tones, gently overlapping in momentary harmonic interactions. Alongside these long tones are heard slowly pulsing bass frequencies and an occasional woosh of tuned resonance derived from Dreyblatt's first purpose-built instrument, the 'miniature princess pianoforte'. While consistent in its harmonic rhythm, density, and overall effect, the music is without exact repetition, seemingly static yet always in flux. At its irregular intervals, the 800hz beep intervenes to wake us from our contemplative immersion in the drifting tones. The resulting listening experience is a fascinating one: at each beep, we are momentarily jolted into close listening before the drifting formlessness of the music allows us to surrender again to a kind of daydream. As the piece elegantly unfolds across its forty minutes, it manages both to enchant immediately and to occasion an uncomfortable, radically self-reflective listening." (label info)