New Music From Gwenno, Durian Brow
Gwenno
Le Kov
(Heavenly)
Gwenno Saunders is one of an estimated few thousand people who are fluent speakers of the obscure Cornish language, from Cornwall county in southwest England, and she made a point to write her second solo album, Le Kov, solely in Cornish.
The title Le Kov means “the place of memory” in Cornish, and there’s an air of mystery throughout the album, with a touch of fantasy among revived legends of sunken Cornish cities.
Raised in a household that eschewed popular culture and only spoke Cornish, Gwenno’s ticket out was a dancing gig as a teenager with Michael Flatley’s “Lord of the Dance” show in Las Vegas, where she cultivated her love for electronic music. Gwenno is best known as the lead singer of the now-disbanded Pipettes, the polka-dot-sporting trio that took deep inspiration from ‘60s girl-group pop acts and added a modern sheen.
Le Kov arrives a few years after her satisfying solo full-length debut Y Dydd Olaf, which was mostly sung in Welsh, and it continues in Gwenno’s sophisticated, electronically enhanced (but not total electro-pop) style, with a mix of acoustic and synthetic sounds that brings to mind certain ‘70s soundtracks.
A few points of comparison might include Broadcast and the French band Air, without sounding like those acts exactly.
Gwenno sings with a soft and sultry voice, sometimes tempting with a seductive whisper or doing spoken-word recitations, bringing a sort of formality; certain tracks lounge around in their own space, while others, like “Tir Ha Mor,” show momentum to push things along towards pop territory. “Eus Keus?” offers a subtle space-age sound, while “Jynn-amontya” evokes lushness with piano parts and a vibe that recalls the Serge Gainsbourg/Jean-Claude Vannier collaboration.
The album ends solidly with “Hunros,” with what sounds like a distorted harpsichord and hand-muted bass Wguitar lines, seemingly inspired by Krzysztof Komeda soundtracks, and the lounge-pop of “Koweth Ker.”
While the atmosphere on Le Kov is spot-on for sensual sophistication, this writer wishes some of the melodies stuck a little more firmly to uphold the pop side of the dynamic.
Durian Brow
Durian Brow
(milmin.bandcamp.com)
In addition to his music, percussionist Ben Bennett is known for his enigmatic “Sitting and Smiling” video series, which at last count features 283 videos; each video shows Bennett sitting absolutely still with a forced grin on his face for four hours.
If one could imagine the exact opposite of that, it would be along the lines of Bennett’s performance style, which features almost constant action and changes and is never predictable. In different ways, Bennett messes with observers’ perception of time.
The new free improvisational duo Durian Brow features Bennett with guitarist Zach Darrup; both are based in Philadelphia and have separate trios with seasoned improvisers saxophonist Jack Wright and bassist Evan Lipson—Wrest (with Bennett) and Roughhousing (with Darrup)—and both are also in a new trio with Lipson named Virtual Balboa.
The debut self-titled full-length album from Durian Brow constantly lobs ideas at the listener, and it could possibly be the musical equivalent of a multi-car road wreck; however, it’s not a wreck in slow motion—it’s magnified and scrutinized so that every twist of metal, every bruise or puncture and every startled outburst is represented in excruciating detail over 44 minutes.
Rather than playing a conventional drum kit, Bennett prefers to sit on the floor with a number of small drums and metallic objects, and he scampers with quick beats, clangs, squeaks, rubbing sounds and just about any sound imaginable in what might be perceived in one’s imagination as articulated junkyard wallowing.
For drum pitter-patters, he might press on the drum head for varying pitches or also create nails-on-chalkboard scrapes with a mastery of friction and vibration.
Darrup’s dominating style is a crunchy guitar skronk showing no mercy for his strings that squeal and scream, with notes sometimes taking quick pitch dives; during speedy moments, Darrup’s plucks are like a thousand pin-pricks, and sick tones fade in and out of view, leaving sonic abrasions. Most of the time, it’s absolutely relentless, with just a few breaks to breathe, regroup and create space.
The uninitiated may very well find Durian Brow to be too radical and perhaps interminable, but hardy listeners may relish the challenge of having their brains light up, trying to process everything that’s happening, with numerous “blink and you’ll miss it” moments of nourishing provocation.