Minimalism is usually cool, detached, frictionless and mathematical. The music made by percussionist Bex Burch is not any of these things. What she calls “messy minimalism” shares some characteristics with the music of Steve Reich and John Adams, but this is minimalism that isn’t afraid to break into a sweat and get its hands dirty (quite literally, given that Burch actually builds her own instruments from scratch). She mainly plays a gyil, a marimba-like tuned percussion instrument she learned while studying music in Ghana. She moves and pogos wildly while playing, as well she might, because her music really grooves, intersecting with sounds from Mali, Bali and Latin America.
After living in London, Berlin and Utrecht, and collaborating with the electronic sound-sculptor Leafcutter John, the electro-acoustic ensemble Flock and her post-punk trio Vula Viel, Burch’s first solo album lands her in Chicago, enlisting some Windy City jazz mavericks, including trumpeter Ben LaMar Gay, woodwind player Rob Frye and members of Tortoise. Sometimes, the results sound like an earthier Philip Glass: Dawn Blessings pairs her dreamlike, two-note gyil pattern with violinist Macie Stewart’s beautiful harmonies; Don’t Go Back to Sleep sees Burch’s gyil fractionally out of phase with a synthesiser, then spins into hypnotic but disorientating minimal techno.
Other tracks get wilder. There are drum circles, water drums and birdsong; tracks that exploit the acoustics of a California canyon. Pardieu turns a three-note xylophone riff into a compelling funk groove; Fruit Smoothie With Peanut Butter is a wonderfully chaotic drum circle that sounds melodic despite not featuring any tuned instruments. Best of all is You Thought You Were Free?, which layers clattering percussion over the wailing siren of a tornado warning relayed over Chicago until it sounds like a freakish fusion of the Master Musicians of Joujouka and Fela Kuti.
Also out this month
The Polish composer Hania Rani has built up a considerable audience for her solo piano miniatures (she plays London’s Roundhouse on Oct 26), but her latest LP Ghosts (Gondwana) moves into pleasantly aqueous pop territory, with hushed vocals and compelling melodies on Hello, Don’t Break My Heart and Dancing With Ghosts. Guests include Ólafur Arnalds, Duncan Bellamy and Patrick Watson.
Barcelona duo Raül Refree & Pedro Vian have created a wonderful piece of electro-acoustic music with Font de la Vera Pau (Modern Obscure Music, 27 Oct): a captivating mix of strings and analogue synth drones which sometimes flirts with Alice Coltrane-ish spiritual jazz.
The new LP by the London-based Kazakh violinist Galya Bisengalieva, Polygon (One Little Independent) is inspired by the grim story of a facility in north-eastern Kazakhstan where the Soviet military tested hundreds of nuclear weapons, poisoning many and destroying the ecology. Like Hildur Guðnadóttir’s soundtrack to Chornobyl, it recreates echoey chambers and the sound of geiger counters, but Bisengalieva envelopes these tracks with string arrangements that are lush and terrifying.
