For another review this week, I started with the words “I don’t know where to start here”, and well, for this release, it’s a bit different. The artists didn’t know where to start, so they chose the impossible task of “Counting Backwards from Infinity”, but where is infinity? Right, it’s non-existent. So, where do things start? And where does this release start? There’s a lot of metaphysical thinking to be done, and at that moment, you haven’t heard a single note yet. Because If you start at a non-existent point and take it from there, where do you end up? At zero? Or still at Infinity? Or is that a different infinity? Does infinity plus 1 exist? Does infinity minus 1 exist? Minus 2? Minus 3? Does this release exist? It’s so lovely to have a brain like mine … Always on the road …
In 2013, Sindre Bjerga and Fabio Orsi came to Nijmegen, where they had a BromBrom residency at Geluidswerkplaats Extrapool. On October 10th, they met up with Frans de Waard, who is from Nijmegen (and back then, curator of the Brombron project), and they worked on a few pieces. Well, those pieces, recorded 11 years ago, are now available to the public, and it’s this release through Attenuation Circuit. Three pieces (11, 12 and 21 minutes) ‘are simply’ titled “Infinity” minus the tracking number and as paradoxical to what is written before, here, Infinity minus 1 (or 2 or 3) does exist.
The title refers to the concept of this album, which has a lot to do with changing the perception of time. And drone / minimal noise mostly does that to me. When at a concert, closing your eyes, feeling like an eternity and realizing the set only took 20 minutes. Playing a CD with a 70-minute drone and thinking only half an hour has since pressing play … That’s the kind of time stretching I’m referring to. And no use denying it; I KNOW at least some of you feel the same. And if you don’t know what I’m talking about? Try listening to Eliane Radigue’s ‘Trilogie de la Mort’, but don’t do anything else while listening. No working, no reading, no smartphone close-by … Just deep-listening.
And this album, even though it’s a different style than the ultra-minimal drone, enables the same time shift. As well as a sound shift. The longer you listen, the more the sounds change, and you start the journey where you don’t know if you’re going forwards or backward. But that’s because infinity plus one and infinity minus one are both still infinity. And you’re still in a trance-like state on the couch, grabbing your head around the concept of infinity.
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