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Noah Creshevsky - Rounded with a Sleep
 Noah Creshevsky's work is testimony to the ongoing power of music.
Noah Creshevsky once said that the next Mozart
might well come from the ranks of video gamers. That future hasn't yet
come to pass, but Creshevsky's prediction has served as a potent
reminder for him to prevent his music from ever growing stale or
repetitive. In a discography which, after his defining 2003 album
Hyperrealism, has grown with astounding speed and seemingly increasing
ease, Rounded with a sleep may well be the closest he has come to his
personal manifesto.
On the face of it, this is chamber music, written for solo performers
or small, comparatively traditional ensemble settings. And yet, the
sonic familiarity only serves to bring out the uniqueness and
excitingly idiosyncratic nature of the underlying scores and concepts
in ever sharper relief. On "What If", lightning-speed piano arpeggios
are interlocked with gritty harpsichord figures with preternatural
precision, creating a breathtaking race for an imaginary finish line.
On "La Sonnambula", piano, vibraphone and clarinet are brimming with so
much joi de vivre that each seems to be playing its own piece - yet the
resulting fusion of melodic lines is of a seamless and shimmering
textural quality. On "Lisa Barnard Redux", meanwhile, Chreshevsky
weaves a tight, equally hypnotic and lively arrangement from words,
thematic fragments, rhythmical scats and harmonic clusters, a whole
world built entirely from one person's vocal chords.
The recording studio provides for the means of realising these ideas
and making them sound credible, for an infinite array of possibilities
and palettes. And yet, the creative spark still very much occurs within
the communication between the composer and his audience. The most
impressive instances are not the ones charged with technical virtuosity
– although the supernaturally scintillating trills in the title piece
are undeniably causing spikes in the listener's adrenalin levels – but
those, when the music stops for a short pause of breath, comfortably
resting in space for a moment before continuing.
Creshevsky may be interested in extending music beyond the humanly
possible, but his goal is never to extend it beyond the human. If music
has remained as relevant and potent as ever in the 21st century, then
perhaps that is because there is something in the act of conceiving,
performing and listening to it that still feels more profound than
ripping through virtual video game corridors shooting up aliens. In a
world where the term reality is increasingly loosing its meaning,
Rounded with a sleep serves as a perfect reminder of why we should
never let go of this power. - Tobias Fisher, Tokafi
American electoacoustic composer
Creshevsky is probably best known for his appearance on various LPs
from the Opus One label (which was run by the recently departed Max
Schubel); pieces from which were later collected for a CD release in
Japan on the EM Records label. At least that is how I know of his work.
Since those days he's had a pair of discs each from Centaur Records and
Tzadik. Keeping that trend, this is now his second CD on Pogus
following 2008's split with If, Bwana entitled "Favorite Encores". This
latest disc features seven compositions created between 2006 and 2011
with each focusing on a different soloist, seemingly as source material
for electronically manipulated end products. Among the featured players
are Sherman Friedland (clarinet), Lisa Barnard Kelley (voice), Stuart
Isacoff (piano improvisations), Tomomi Adachi (voice), Juha Laitinen (cello), and
on "The Kindness of Strangers" the one trio of the disc with Gary Heidt
(voice and guitar), Rich Gross (lap steel/banjo) and Orin Buck (bass).
Each piece evinces a busy, almost hyperactive in some cases, flow of
the material, with a multitude of individual notes and tonal
variations. In fact the hyper- prefix comes up in Creshevsky's liner
notes as he explains his concept of Hyperrealism which is the mixture
of real parts of our environment treated in exgerated, excessive or
just plain hyper ways. So while the sound sources are acoustic in
origin, the way they are assembled reminds me more of the approach of
electroacoustic composition. One stated aim of this is to be able to
take the performances beyond the limits of human abilities and create
virtual super-virtuosos. This focus on individual sources is a bit of
contrast to his earlier compositions which were often collages of
disparate material, yet still retains some of the same internal logic.
And I suppose keeping with his reputation for juxtaposition, two of the
tracks do add what appears to be virtual instruments to the featured
soloist and the opening, title track credits no performers, which
points to the likelihood that all the sounds on that track are sampled.
Probably the furtherest out track on the album is "Tomomi Adachi Redux
II". The piece's titular vocalist might be known for his solo CD on
Edition Omega Point, but his stylizations mostly clearly evoke a
comparison to Chris Mann for me. "What If" also stands out for its
arrangement of the hyperreal piano which heads towards the realm of
Conlon Nancarrow yet don't ape his style.- Eric Lanzillotta, Bixobal
Noah Creshevsky is a man who cares about a correct interpretation, as
one can tell even by noticing the refreshing precision of his writing;
from the same communicative cloth comes the meticulousness that he
applies to the process of creating music. Rounded With A Sleep – first
solitary release for Al Margolis’ imprint – transmits a deep sense of
attainment through a sequence of refined compositional frameworks.
However, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to appreciate the fruits of
Creshevsky’s juxtapositions; the most notable quality is a rare ability
in turning complexity into glowing crystals of comprehensibility. The
package of Hyperrealism – this is how the “genre” is called –
incorporates hours, weeks and months of painstaking studio work. Still,
our ears perceive an immediate luminousness, a mélange of clever
temperament and soulful composure indicating the transition from mere
divertissement to fine art.
As always, the starting points are samples of
human and instrumental origin. From thousands of snippets, either
utilized in their natural range or transposed, Creshevsky constructs
pieces that clearly show his classical training as an essential
background. In this composite world, where we can barely guess if an
harpsichord is really an harpsichord (it might be an altered guitar,
but it’s not a problem), sonic instances from diverse eras fuse like in
a miracle, and the hyper-poly-a-tonality of several of those designs
causes an attentive listener to vacillate across various stages of
relative insecurity. We’re prevented from lying down and get
comfortable, but – quite preposterously – receive positive stimuli
exactly for that reason. There’s no time to ask “what was that?”, yet
an omni-comprehensive vision of a whole is achieved at the end of each
track. You just need to play the record again to better fix certain
spots and glimpses of (presumed) knowledge of the raw material.
Speaking of which, a definite highlight is
represented by Tomomi Adachi’s implausibly amusing phonemes: a collage
of babbled syllables, strained air intakes and Japanese accents amidst
aleatory vibraphone zigzags making “Tomomi Adachi Redux II” a cardinal
improver of any intelligent iPod list. Incidentally, I wonder how a
collaboration between Creshevsky and scat-machine extraordinaire Lorin
Benedict would turn out. Other salient moments are to be found in the
magnificent “The Kindness Of Strangers” – a tapestry of modified voice,
guitar, bass, lap-steel and banjo that makes those narrow-ranged
instruments depict atmospheres of boundlessness – and the conclusive
“In Memoriam”, Juho Laitinen’s cello as the basis of a complex type of
solemnity replete with glorious resonant shades.
Singling out parts is not an effective option when
examining such a kaleidoscopic statement. Go with the flow, letting
this combination of unlikely junctures and multifarious timbres inspire
your sensation of being, including aspects we’re not ready to
immediately grasp. - Massimo Ricci, Touching Extremes
Creshevsky
started around 1971 as a composer, but he is still very productive. His
new release for Pogus with seven compositions dating from 2006 up to
2011, is convincing proof of this. It is a real ‘tour de force’ of his
hyperrealism. Creshevshy wants to ‘expand musical palettes, and to turn
performers into super performers by removing the constraints of human
anatomy (breath and touch)’. A music that wants to remain human in any
respect, but at the same time wants to transcend human limitations
concerning technical capability, etc. Because why should a musical
vision stop where technical performing abilities stop due to physical
limitations? At the same time however Creshevshy is very alert in
making the music sound very human, organic and even sensual. It is
music that evidently demonstrates that it is beyond human capacities to
perform, but at the same voice and instrument sound recognizable as if
it could be done. Although it is his pretension to create imply th is
illusion. That makes no sense. But the music remains at the same time
very close to human proportions and emotions. It is of great elegance
and friendly gestures. ‘La Sonnambula’ is for a trio – so to speak - of
piano, clarinet and vibraphone and is a fine example of this. But the
compositions that concentrate on the human voice are best examples of
this. ‘Lisa Bernard Redux’ with the voice of Lisa Barnard Kelly is a
very intimate work. Same for ‘Tomomi Adachi Redux II’ with the voice of
Tomomi Adachi and vibraphone and playback. This last piece is also a
good illustration or example of the baroque-like melodies Creshevsky
seems to prefer. Illustrating that he is also searching for a
combination of well-known styles and patterns, with elements that are
beyond everything. - DM, Vital Weekly
It is a relief and surprise
to hear Noah Creshevsky changed his own concept/approach a bit for this
release, taking off the extreme a bit when he rearranges his conceived
talent this time into slower progressions, in which it is even more
clear and easier to follow what he is doing and expressing, allowing in
this way a more normal level of emotionality and speed of evolution
into the unfolding of his expressions. From his ideas of hyperrealism
the (hyper)kinetic approach has been left out. This is created more
onto the rhythm and the level of the speech where every tone is
expressed either like singing or like spoken language.
On the first track, “Rounded With A Sleep”, it still is recognisable
how he builds up his composition with almost sampled, picked out
direction of a musical phoneme under the form of a tone, accent,
arpeggio, or whatever choice of a specific instrument, combined with
the next one to form his composition with those phonemes instead of
notes. In this case you can follow the rhythmic accents in a way
someone is singing, directing, moving in space with the dance of the
composition. This composition has a layer of singing with an orchestral
accompaniment (violin, cello, voices and later flute improvisations and
harpsichord) that consists of this collage-like collection of phonemes
of movements.
The second track, “La Sonnambula”, has more continuous improvisations
on piano, clarinet and vibraphone, some in contemporary series' of
notes, while a certain fluent and melodic, at times almost jazzy
improvisational movement develops with it as well. “Lisa Barnard Redux”
consists of several layers of slightly breathy or quietly singing
expressions of spoken word rhythms of consonants, an original playful
idea of using human voice. The last part turns to a vocally arranged
Baroque chamber-like music melody, while the rhythmic play continues
further in the background.
“What If” is a composition with a fast steady melodic piano piece
played like a Baroque harpsichord piece of which some notes in between
are played on separate notes on the harpsichord as if being some
accompanying echo, a bit annoying and disarming the composition as an
idea and very playful at the same time. Luckily this idea evolves
further when the piano composition becomes a more contemporary
composition, so that the harpsichord seems to free itself from this
bodice, taking a lead a bit further on, improvising a bit and then
returning playfully to this combined body of Baroque notes.
“Tomomi Adachi Redux II” reminds me a bit of the brilliant Asa-Chang
& Junray release which was a play of rhythm, Japanese language and
a lot more. This track by Noah Creshevsly has an original vocal part
based upon fast word expressions that sound like the Japanese language,
mixed with funny vocal sounds accents, accompanied by chords of another
Baroque melody on guitar. I feel it is a bit of a shame that this idea
of accompaniment does not evolve itself to something else once it made
itself clear (which would have uplift it to a next level, something the
Asa-Chang release always did), it is instead kept basic and simple to
an expression of one, still very good idea.
“The Kindness Of Strangers” is played by a few layers of electric
amplified guitar (?) mixed with keyboards perhaps, there is attention
to the way it is performed as if there is a constant up and down fading
in of sound while picking and sliding accents are expressed, the
combination of all these ideas are sonically interesting, the change
itself is natural like an improvisation. And it also builds up further
by adding some voice contributions in the same way, as if giving it a
song expression context too.
“In Memoriam” is a chamber-music piece where the direct orchestral
playing is much more easy to follow than ever before on Noah’s
compositions, giving it an extra dynamic, almost emotionally rich
expression to the movements. The way the descending and ascending speed
changes are added to the composition and bowed playing recreates the
way the orchestra has been played, showing a very practical use of his
hyperrealism idea, while being expressed on a new classical piece that
expands Bartok to something of more emotional value.
There are really many ideas in this album that are worth discovering.
The full concept is highly enjoyable, well alternated and highly
accessible, so these are a good start before delving deeper into the
works of this talented composer. - Gerald Van Waes, Psyche van het folk
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