Prepared are a trio from Munich who play a fairly conventional array of acoustic instruments in an unconventional style, Chris Gall is a pianist with a predilection for preparing his instrument with devices placed on the strings, Flo Riedl is on bass clarinet and Christopher Holzhauser plays the drums. Their music is distinctly metronomic, reminiscent of Nik Bärtsch, the Penguin Café Orchestra and Brandt Brauer Frick it takes Steve Reich’s ideas about repetition to new places.
While there are always three distinct instruments in the mix the way that they sync with one another varies in often mesmeric fashion, what can start off as powerful counterpoint can shift to an overlapping or melding of sounds that changes things entirely. It meshes and fluctuates in unpredictable fashion with rarely any one voice given centre stage, this does occasionally happen which allows a degree of the melodic to contrast with the percussive nature of music overall, and this makes a nice contrast.
Tonally the presence of the bass clarinet and the absence of the higher notes from the piano makes for a dark overall sound, it’s rich and textured but not much light escapes the intensity. The recording is excellent, apparently it was made using mic techniques developed for Dolby Atmos (and is available to stream in this format) which give it a three dimensionality that is often absent from modern productions. There is also plenty of dynamic range although you have to wait until things quieten down before the true extent of this becomes clear.
The variety on Module is provided by rhythmic changes and the way that these are constantly evolving, so what starts out as an off kilter beat can be disrupted by slow piano chords that show off the harmonic complexities of the instrument in its prepared form. There are also moments when multiple instruments manage to combine in such a way as to sound like a bass guitar note, yet no bass player is credited. Strangely while metronomically strict in some respects the music on Module is not constricted or restrained in any apparent way. It’s machine music played by real musicians on real instruments who create kaleidoscopic patterns in sound that are often entrancing.
Jason Kennedy