A Closer Listen
From the very beginning of his twenty-year career, Rutger Zuydervelt has been scoring music for an incredible array of mediums: films, games, dance performances and installations. Perhaps his most distinctive commission is his partnership with the dance/circus duo Marta & Kim, which began with As Much As It Is Worth and Engel in 2018 and is now renewed. While Meander, produced in collaboration with Felix Hess and Knot on Hands, stands on its own, we’re jealous of those who will experience the live debut at Festival Circolo, Tilburg (NL) this month.
To meander is to follow a winding or indirect course, but even a meandering course has its end. The cover art suggests a series of streams, which tend to chart their own paths. In the performance, the five circus and dance artists “slide and climb over and under each other, soar into the heights or intertwine into one body.” The experience is meant to highlight shifting views, relationships and perspectives on their way to a unified whole. Zuydervelt responds to the theme with an album that underlines his many compositional strengths; it is in turn ambient, experimental and electronic, sometimes suggesting “traditional” dance, other times reflection, eventually producing a sense of synergy.
The album begins with a watery whoosh and an onset of patterns and beats. “Rafting” recalls Zuydervelt’s super-fun quintet of beat-driven EPs (Hinkelstap,Tuimelval, Haast, Kadans, Malheur) from 2022-24. The handclaps suggest that the performers are having a whole lot of fun as well. Vibraphone tones produce a flowing, uplifting tone, and we can imagine the observers drawn in from the start. Before the track ends, it begins to calm down, its sudden beginning followed by a far more subtle ending. Shifting from stream to cloud, “Trio/Duo/Solo” takes place in a drizzle, as flute tones suggest the meander. Birds offer directions, growing increasingly insistent; even the solo dancer is not entirely solo.
As “Kim & Tijs / Lightbulb Creature” descends into drone, one feels the plummet; the water is now a stalactite drip, the sonics rustling with static glow. Seldom has an album’s mood shifted so swiftly, as if accompanying Dante layer by layer. This tonal variety is certainly a boon to the performers, whose bodies are primed to respond to different tempos and timbres. Thankfully the mood lifts in the bright and chiming “Strandbeest,” which honors the wind-powered “beach animals” of Dutch artist Theo Jansen. This is the part of the performance we’d most like to see; we hope Jansen is in attendance!
From this point, the cycle (somewhat) repeats, the sound of surf continuing the liquid theme in “Britt & Tip / Yes Phrase,” proceeding directly from the mouth of the strandbeest. The rhythms return, growing in intensity and frequency, suggesting multiple dancers converging or a spectator becoming a crowd. But then – imitating its title – the music again meanders, introducing a note of conflict in “Droplets” that remains unresolved until “Blooming.” The implication: progress is not a straight line. Humanity will stumble and fall on its way to an uncertain destination, often walking backward, retracing its steps and (hopefully) returning to the right path. Despite our differences, these performers suggest that it is better to arrive together than alone. (Richard Allen)
Thu Oct 24 00:01:40 GMT 2024