chasms anthony pateras | sirr0030

http://manwithoutshame.blogspot.com/
There's no plinking, plonking or abstractions involved; the sound is dense, relentless and the effect is dizzying and mesmerising. Unlike any other recording I've heard involving piano strings and screws, Chasms brings to mind Terry Riley or Conlon Nancarrow as played by a Gamelan orchestra. Overwhelming and overwhelmingly good, this'll be in my Top Ten of '07, you can count on that.

072007 Vital Weekly
(...) What a great release it is. With prepared piano's the music has an unmistakably percussive feel to it, but unlike some of Cage's pieces, it's not entirely purely rhythmical. Pateras plays the piano like a percussion instrument, going through loud and heavy passages but also knows how to take back control and contemplation in the title piece. Sometimes it sounds like a frog choir, or ethnic percussion, or like a lone bang on a can. Pateras opens a fascinating world. Highly (modern) classical in approach, but throughout also highly enjoyable. Great debut.

072007 The Wire Magazine
it’s 70 years since John Cage first prepared a piano; 60 since his Sonatas And Interludes demonstrated what might be achieved with its now familiar array of metallic, wooden and ceramic timbres. In intervening years the instrument has often been used to generate sound effects, much more rarely to make truly exciting or innovative music. Australian composer Anthony Pateras has been exploring the sounding potential of prepared piano in various contexts since 2000, notably in an acclaimed trio with percussionist Sean Baxter and guitarist Dave Brown. Chasms is a solo project that takes prepared piano seriously and delivers exhilarating results.
In his liner notes, Pateras alludes to how György Ligeti, in Continuum (1968) for harpsichord and Coulee (1969) for organ, transformed keyboard music through velocity. He’s understandably reluctant to present Chasms as a homage, displacing the usual Cage association with Ligeti’s example, but a lesson has clearly been learnt. The first and third sections are characterised by polyrhythmic intensity and rapid execution,
overloading the ear in ways that suggest frenetic ensemble work or the layers and
clusters of electroacoustic montage. The title track, placed in the middle, is far slower,
sparsely arranged and spacious, heavy on sustain, exploiting peculiarities in the decay of prepared tones. It works extremely well in terms of contrast. But whether gradual or
accelerated, this music has depth – and it’s depth with content, not just a resonant
hollowness. Cage and Ligeti may have shown the way, but that content is Pateras’s own and it‘s certainly worth hearing.

10.2007 www.thesilentballet.com
At its most dense, Chasms' prepared piano comes across not unlike a Balinese gamelan orchestra at full pelt, the percussive tones produced spread wildly and gloriously across the mix. However, the sparsity of the closing minutes of "Residue" is a welcome reminder of the astonishing range of Pateras' instrument, the atmosphere created from the repeated single, booming note lightly suggesting percussive recall of the middle section of solo piano piece "Phrygian Gates" by minimalist pioneer John Adams.
Chasms is particularly free in its construction when compared with Pateras' other compositions and the approaches of other performers to the prepared piano. The evolution of musical ideas holds a sense of sponteneity when combined with Pateras' undeniable ability with his instrument and makes for an exciting listening experience. Despite the inaccessible nature of much of the release and the often grating timbres employed, the timbral variety and textural complexity makes for an intriguing experience.If there is anything significant that indicates a progression from the prepared piano works of John Cage, it is the enormous flexibility and diversity of sound that is used by Pateras, the range of timbres never ceasing to amaze. Pateras' instrument has a diversity that is often missing from similar uses of prepared piano. Every sound that is produced on "Chasms" seems totally individual, yet harmonious with the rest of the piano.
Chasms is impressive for those interested and appreciative of the complexity of both ideas and execution of prepared piano work. While it is hardly the most musically organised or aurally accessible release, it resembles a mad scientist at work, his results intriguing and often exciting. In any case, it can potentially be a rewarding musical experience.

Smallfish
Compellingly put together and fluid from beginning to end, this is clearly the work of someone in love with his chosen medium, and it really comes across. There's a depth and lushness that's very listenable and although this resides very much at the exerimental end of electro-acoustic music, it's accessible enough for a lot of people to enjoy it. Sirr once again deliver a very fine album.

http://www.gaz-eta.vivo.pl
Three years in the making, the recording showcases prepared piano in all its magnificent glory. It sound as if more than one person was playing pianos simultaneously. The incessant clickety-clack motifs rise and falter every few minutes. There are sections when one hears distinct sound of metal bowls banging away at each other and plopping on the strings. In other sections, I hear what could be whooshing cymbals posturing on top of the strings and against the walls of the piano. The title piece is much more relaxed in nature, with every click and plonk being carefully pre-determined. The echo rings on for many seconds every time a percussive ring comes out of the piano. The richness of the piece as a whole can't be underestimated. Rich and satisfying to the last drop, this is one album that grows on the listener with time.

092007 http://www.pointofdeparture.org
Though “residue,” the first of three pieces on Anthony Pateras’ chasms, initially has a similar exhilarating rattle to that of “Bacchanale,” it is the velocity of György Ligeti’s solo organ and harpsichord music that is the inspiration of the Australian composer/pianist (and Issue 12 What’s New? panelist) This becomes more evident as the piece takes shape; as Pateras’ scurrying lines traverse the preparations, morphing shrill, tuned cymbal clangor into a more dampened sound in the ballpark of a Bantu timbila. The title piece provides a short lull of clock-like chimes, choked strums and spatters of metallic sounds. Pateras’ interest in approximating electronic noise also comes to the foreground at the onset of “descent,” casting the materials in a decidedly post-modern direction. This is also the piece where Pateras’ skill set as a pianist is most compelling, as there repeated moments when it suddenly and somewhat shockingly becomes obvious that a maelstrom of sound is being produced by only one hand. In terms of temperament, Pateras seems to be the polar opposite of Cage; yet, listening to these discs in tandem, there are threads of continuity that connect the respective works, albeit tenuously.

072007 Tribune de Genéve +
Ecrous, vis, boulons, clous, gommes, carrés de carton ou d'étoffe coincés avec art entre les cordes d'un piano. C'est la "préparation" léguée à la postérité par John Cage, le compositeur-sorcier-mycologue qui jouait avec le hasard. Anthony Pateras, lui, sait précisément ce qu'il veut. Etre un orchestre électronique à lui tout seul. Retrouver la richesse des sons artificiels avec des recettes d'artisan-acousticien. Chez lui, à Melbourne, son quincailler doit se frotter les mains d'avoir pour voisin un musicien aussi excentrique. Toute cette ferraille engloutie dans les entrailles profondes du piano, jour après jour depuis 2005, pour être recrachée en décibels auréolés de résonnances étranges, de grincements sourds, de cloches lointaines et tintinnabulantes... A chaque corps étranger plongé dans le piano correspond un son propre, qui rend le son de l'instrument pas propre du tout. Comme un charme qui altérerait les sens de l'auditeur.
Avec Chasms, son hommage très personnel à György Ligeti (...), le compositeur-improvisateur australien ouvre une brèche dans la perception. On jurerait entendre tout au long des trois mouvements le cliquetis d'un échantillonneur fantastique, une horde de gamelans virtuels, une nuée de grelots d'outre-tombe, l'appel d'un glas qui vous glace les sangs. Bref, tout un bestiaire électronique obtenu en glissant simplement quelques bouts de métal au fond d'un gouffre noir qu'on appelle un piano. Vertigineux. (ls)

082007 E|i Magazine +
More often than not, the releases that float within the orbit of Portugese label Sirr offer pennyworths, that is to say, acts of audio and visual commentary on conceptual and concréte pertaining to experience in today’s world-city. The first selection on hand is that from sound artist Anthony Pateras. Though he parries any suggestion that this might be a homage to the magisterial presence of Ligeti, in an act of surrogacy, the actions of Pateras carry his influence, the way the composer used polyrhythmic intensity and delicately volcanic rapidity of key phrases to allow the piano to shed its skin and become a virtual ensemble onto itself. The tracks that bookend the album are heavily rhythmic, full of constant splitting and delimitation's, and crackling electronic embers whose participation in the sprawling web of concrete sounds amplifies the strange magnitude of the work. It avoids becoming an agglomeration of rapid, dreamlike associations, though, deftly steering itself as a series of studies piecing together various insights and recollections. From this paralysis of one’s faculties by way of overexposure, on the title track—which here drives a wedge between these other two aforementioned works—Pateras seeks this end through the use of underexposure. The piece creates a much greater uniform mass that at first relies on cyclical movement, but then grows increasingly animated by decaying sounds. In either form, accelerated or near-stasis, this is a stirring performance that offers a great deal to digest.

Tobias Fisher, .tokafi.com +
It will be interesting to observe how this piece will be placed in the debate on the prepared piano. As if such an instrument existed! The prepared piano is a collective term, an excuse for journalists to deprive their readers of detailed information, it is a myth and an absconding apparition, which gets more opaque the more one tries to squeeze it into a frame. There is certainly a tradition of adjacent approaches, starting with Cage and Ligeti and reaching well into the new millenium and Anthony Pateras openly touches upon it in his humble and honest liner notes. But the entire point of the exercise is to be able to do personal things with a previously standardised object – and as such each approach is as unique as its preparation techniques.

Even though he doesn’t reveal the secrets to the latter subject, Pateras is quite open about his aims. In his prepared piano study, the instrument is to create the illusion of “more than one player”, to build different layers of perception, each one with its own meaning and importance and to add a virtuoso element to the music, something usually absent from contemporary art. The performance aspect can of course only be guessed at with merely the digital representation of “chasms” available, even though the disturbingly rattling and nervously hastening sequences in the opening movement deserved some respect even if they had been glued together with protools. This is merely an academical mindgame, though, because of course they haven't: In concerts all over Europe and the USA (Patera’s site mentions “a cellar in Lisbon, a train workshop in Wagga Wagga, the Walt Disney Concert Hall in LA, and an old ballroom in Berlin”), the composer has proved his capacity of transferring the score to the stage. And it has to be said: The album delivers on its main intentions impressively. The music sounds like a fully-fledged gammelan orchestra, the cowbell philharmonics, a bycicle bell ensemble, a Tibetan Chamber Music project or a foamed plastic drill crew on a Sunday morning and hardly ever like a man sitting calmly behind his piano. Because different registers are awarded different manipulations, there is an outward appearance of various resonating textures rubbing against each other – resulting in an impression of timbral plenitude and a larger performance group.

Next to this goal, there is another facet to the work. On many occasions, especially in the slower middle segment, one is treated to sounds of great depth and space, which contrast with dry, marimba-like chords (or are they single notes?). On an uninitiated listen, these are immediately and unconsciously categorised as being “electronic”. It is only after studying the booklet that certainty about their true nature is established. Pateras has recognised that there is a certain undervaluation and underestimation of the acoustic possibilities of traditional instruments and his effort delivers a powerful statement in defence of the organic. Ignoring its long-steeped tradition, we’d like to hear more of this particular prepared piano.

Dmute +
Derrière un piano préparé, voire, à l'intérieur, l'Australien Anthony Pateras signe en solo un excellent disque, qui soumet ses devoirs de musique contemporaine à toutes expérimentations sonores.
Un peu à la manière de son compatriote Ross Bolleter, mais en plus insaisissable encore, Pateras s'occupe d'abord des possibilités acoustiques de son instrument, cassant un discours qu'il a plus tôt installé à grands coups de clusters pour conclure au son des effets de grands chocs espacés (Residue). Espacées aussi, les premières interventions de Chasms, lent déploiement de propositions acoustiques rappelant davantage les fausses hésitations de Morton Feldman que le lyrisme emporté d'un Ligeti que Pateras cite en référence.
Car c'est à Descent qu'il incombera de servir le plus clairement l'influence sur le bourdon formé par la répétition de deux notes frénétiques puis en superposant ses couches sonores et résonnantes. Avec cette pièce polyrythmique éblouissante, Pateras referme son premier album solo, complément essentiel à une pratique instrumentale à laquelle il s'adonne d'habitude auprès de Sean Baxter et Daniel Brown.

102007 Kathodik
Dopo il genialoide trio con Sean Baxter e David Brown, il duo elettro-manipolatorio con Robin Fox, e dopo la collaborazione con la Tzadik di Zorn, l’astro (più che) nascente della sperimentazione oltranzista, l’australiano Anthony Pateras, approda al primo lavoro completamente solista. Un ‘attracco’ che sopraggiunge dopo anni di meticolosa analisi attorno lo strumento prediletto: quel pianoforte preparato che invade intimamente le tre perle di “Chasms”, e che mediante le modifiche di Anthony, erge non come elemento unico, isolato, ma bensì come un insieme vibrante e policromo di differenti entità timbriche… e FISICHE!
L’interesse in Pateras per l’alterazione della fonte sonora originaria, sagomandola in qualcosa di vasto e molto percussivo, è da ricercarsi nell’orientamento nutrito per pilastri della contemporanea, quali John Cage e György Ligeti; e proprio a quest’ultimo che il nostro, nelle note interne del cd, dedica un esauriente omaggio, esponendo l’idea di raggiungere prima o poi nel proprio mood una congiunzione tra la forma-mentis del compositore ungherese e le nuove sinergie (e tecnologie) conquistate nell’era ('ultra') moderna. Ognuna delle composizioni scritte alla bisogna ha una precisa identità e nessuna delle tre si lega minimamente per somiglianza con le altre. La prima, Residue, è una suite dal forte retrogusto percussivo, in cui il suono del pianoforte si lascia riconoscere solo negli sporadici giochi di risonanza; metallici ed alla maniera di un grande Charlemagne Palestine. Pateras fa in modo che la sua musica dialoghi, anche in situazioni tumultuose, con i silenzi; è il caso della successiva title track, accovacciata su lenti interscambi tra sottili riverberi e minuziosi tocchi armonici (la materia) con spazi silenti (il vuoto apparente) che, in fase crescente, vengono sempre più contaminati da pulviscoli di note astratte. Uno stato ipnotico, imbastito da un continuo ‘mormorio’ di particelle percussive, si forma in Descent il quale, al contrario di quello che lascia immaginare il titolo, è un complesso strutturale in perenne e frenetica evoluzione.
Una costruzione infermabile come il genio di Pateras che speriamo prosegui sempre con maggior devozione il cammino solista.