Vital Weekly 1101 -

Good times happen fast. A motto one might be inclined to but on a little tile. As one does. With inspirational quotes. Mostly it's just bogus. Hot air – much ado about nothing one couldn't have figured out oneself or just plain nonsense. However, sometimes, something does ring true. ‘Merkteken’ was recorded less than a week ago. And thanks to the brilliance of the present age, the work has been released already. How's that for a speedy delivery?
Speed is not of the essence normally associated with Frans de Waard's Freiband project. We're thinking more of slightly glitchy warm ambiences dipping a toe in the pond of glistening yet granular electronics. Pop music as in: music built from popping sounds. And maybe, one day, popular too, who can tell? So, mostly it's all quiet on the Freiband front. No rush. Slow dives into sheer weaves of layer upon layer of shimmering light noises.
The late Gerard Reve, one of the huge literary forces from The Netherlands, had one of his most famous protagonists exclaim: “It did not go by unnoticed”. Alas, that was a life motto worthy of some lengthy contemplation. Not the big works, the monumental statement, the major shift and dramatic revolutions then. But, on quite the other hand... the not unnoticed. The mark made. The sign surviving. Somehow Freiband's music at large merges quite neatly with this statement. Not out of a sense of undeserving, but because it eases itself out of the doldrums of everyday existence, just making the notable difference. Making that difference, in the first place. By being the alternative, presenting it and pressing upon this a wholly personal stamp. Like a Merkteken. A stamp, sign, mark.
Following one long half hour track of quiet hums en scraping metal like noise in slow motion like a gentle caress, Merkteken jacks things up a bit. The following track reaches for the upper regions of spiked noise spectra; like a crashing thunderstorm from afar closing in, but leaving only the electrical hyper charged currents to be heard. In the following ever shortening miniatures of compositions high frequency sinus drone is placed in juxtaposition with fieldrecording-like sounds of subterranean rumbles (or waves crashing on a beach). And we the further we get into the album, the farther from home we seem to drift. Clouds part and brings light – flights of fancy lift us into the air on a journey over pastures filled with jagged edges and rugged relief. And Freiband manages to infuse the whole of the work with momentum and forward driving impulse. Never rushed, mind you, the movement propels breathable air into noisy ambiences, which – in another man's hands – could easily have been transformed into electro-acoustic assaults or oppressive dark ambient reverb doom.
Merkteken was made out of two long field recordings. Frans – Freiband – De Waard constructed his work using this input by manipulating and transforming large chunks of the source materials, not focusing on details. These 'action composing' treatments were then mixed down and following not too many further twists, turns and alterations the stereo mix was finished within two days. And it's exactly this fast slight of hand, this touch of the instance of inspiration and performance in and of itself which connects Freiband's method to the mark making we perhaps know from the visual arts, like in the work of not only Jackson Pollock, but also Franz Kline or Pierre Soulages and Hans Hartung. This kinetic energy with the eye on the prize of the large scope, the whole, the toto puts the small fragments, the parts and elements, the pars into surprising constellations and unexpected clashes. Still, when all is said and done the speed of this (hyper) action is cut out of the equation and we end up with a sfumato ambient work for noise and drone which oozes depth of musical freedom through calm, cool and collected control. (SSK)