Unsuk Chin describes her music as a conscious attempt to render in sound the visions she encounters in her dreams. This ear-catching profile album from Ensemble Intercontemporain presents three of the Korean-born, Berlin-based artist’s works: a triptych of visionary panels that flicker and swarm with kaleidoscopic colours.
It opens with Gougalon, a playful suite inspired by the travelling amateur theatres of her native country. Prepared piano and a percussion section that hums with gongs, bells, bottles and vibraslap lend a riotous jocularity to six contrasting episodes, including the lugubrious Lament of the Bald Singer, the clangorous Grinning Fortune Teller With the False Teeth and the madcap Hunt for the Quack’s Plait. First-class engineering allows the listener to savour every sonic jot and tittle.
