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Phill Niblock - Looking for Daniel (2024)


https://unsounds.bandcamp.com/album/looking-for-daniel

Music label for contemporary composition, experimental, improvisation, sound art. 

We commemorate the late Phill Niblock with this release made in close collaboration with the composer just before his passing in January 2024. His life and work have had a profound influence on many contemporary composers, performers and artists, so it is a great honour to be able to present here, together with Echonance Festival, recordings of some of his very last compositions.

The two works on this album, “Biliana” (2023) and “Exploratory, Rhine Version, Looking for Daniel” (2019) represent the hallmarks of his unique approach to composition where multiple, closely-tuned instruments and voices are used to create rich and complex sonic tapestries.

In “Biliana”, written for performer Biliana Voutchkova, her violin phrases and vocalisations carve out a deep sonorous space full of fluctuating overtones. By emphasizing the physicality and materiality of her sound, the piece gives us the sensation of stepping back to reveal a singular portrait of the musician.

The second work on the CD, “Exploratory, Rhine Version, Looking for Daniel” was recorded by two Netherlands based ensembles, Modelo62 and Scordatura Ensemble from a live recording made at the Orgelpark, Amsterdam during the Echonance Festival in February 2023. It is a complex work comprising of 20 parts, where lines seem to emerge and disappear out of a landscape of harmonies and sonic spectra. There is also a voice hidden in this mass of instruments, just like in “Biliana”, giving both works an added human element – something that always emerges out of Phill Niblock’s seemingly dense musical constructions.



met dank aan de originele poster