Day 3
Drive along the valley and up the mountain to the Oberwald, viewing what remains of the receding Rhône glacier. On to the Grimselpass, already partially covered in snow, and further to the Grimselsee, site of the centuries old Hospiz hotel and the months old Spitallamm dam built right in front of the old one.
The palette in this place of ancient and modern is by now familiar: to the left, white noise from the torrent, masking the sounds of traffic weaving back and forth down the slopes; to the right, electronic pulses from the omnipresent choughs. Raw sounds that match perfectly the pristine, pearlescent glacial water extending all around me, given silent drama when slowly encroaching fog encloses everything.
entwendete fenster
This makes sense, feels right. Rolf Hermann’s poetry, as encountered in UMS ‘n JIP’s previous two song cycles, presents a close, uncomfortable juxtaposition of nature, industry, memory and progress. Two years ago, im störgarten lamented the intrusion of industry into the landscape; in last year’s Neophyten Hermann doubled down on nature, engaged in a war (obviously triggered by humans) with itself, in the form of damaging invasive species. In this new cycle, Hermann swings the other way, speaking from a place to a large extent mediated and defined by technology. One significant difference is length: the previous two cycles each had 25 poems; entwendete fenster has just 10. UMS ‘n JIP clearly want this cycle to have a similar duration, their simple solution being to set the texts twice, once by UMS, once by JIP.
i can’t help wishing UMS came second. As it is, the cycle concludes with JIP’s setting. It feels weirdly familiar. Voice and recorder, high and aligned in contrary motion over twiddling synths. In the second song, characterised by minimal movement, a calm, low, slow and extensive recorder solo heard over an electronic texture of small impacts. Though aspects differ, particularly the vocal material, i can’t help thinking of elements from Woyzeck two days ago. Especially so in the supercharged tenth song, where it’s as if JIP has morphed directly back into the flamboyant form of the Captain, his voice constricted while the pop leans into R&B. i start thinking about tautology, and worry. Is this simply a stylistic / aesthetic / behavioural preference, or a problematic limitation? i remember concerns from Neophyten, and the extent to which Hermann’s words sometimes seemed fitted to an extant sonic fabric, rather than something custom-made.
UMS makes the text into something incredibly tactile. Notes stutter, whisper, connect into chant-like strands: emerge, speak, recede. Recorder and voice in close proximity in an exquisitely fragile, often quasi niente soundworld. Later, when UMS’s instrument is expanded by a multitude in the electronics, the texture turns mesmeric, supporting the voice in its midst, intensifying in lovely clusters around the ever-decreasing final three lines (“let me finish / let me / let”). Appropriately, considering the prevailing nocturnality of the poems, UMS pulls everything back into dark silence, continuity maintained by the most tentative of quiet staccatissimo notes. It’s in just such a tentative place as this that the cycle ends, suffused by a stillness embodying Hermann’s closing lines: “every word / lets the landscape go under / and ends somewhere / in the inland sea”.
The aquatic metaphor is apt, highlights the contrast between the two halves: JIP’s setting has beats and quick movement, yet feels circular, goes nowhere, skims the surface. UMS eschews beats, speaks amorphously, but conveys a strong, steady sense of inexorable forward progression, going beneath the surface of the poetry, into its depths.
Postlude
Münster to Brig, under cover of darkness, then on one of the most beautiful train journeys i’ve known, rendered null and void in the pre-dawn. Geneva to Birmingham to Tewkesbury, and i realise more and more how appropriate the darkness was. A total erasure underscoring the transition not simply from A to B, but from the remote realm of MEbU to the rest of the world. As home gets ever closer, the journey i’m making starts to feel unfathomably huge; paradoxically, the more distant MEbU gets the clearer it becomes. Separate and bounded. Fantastic, fantastical, fantasy.
