Todd Anderson-Kunert | Conjectures
Room40 (LP/DL)
Starting from its very title, the previous album by Todd Anderson-Kunert I had a chance to scrutinize – 2017’s When There Is Nothing Left To Say (Nonlinear) – already expressed the Australian’s prompt perception of what should be obvious to any authentically conscious being: the human language is a frustratingly ineffective means of data transmission.
Extending the concept, what many strive for as “knowledge” is out-and-out nonsense, unless one is tantalized by the delusions of a proverbially precarious brain to clutch at some kind of psyche-saving straws. Particularly interesting in that regard is a passage extracted by Anderson-Kunert’s notes on the origin of Conjectures: “There is the ‘formation of conclusions based on incomplete evidence’, and so there is a form of understanding and comprehension without knowing”. While the former is a perfect translation of the implicit ridiculousness defining the verbal icons of a merely suppositional wisdom, the latter – involuntarily – gets much closer to an essential point. Relinquishing the ego is not easy; avoiding to pronounce fatuous words is even harder when someone’s desire to be recognized at all costs is aroused by the surrounding vociferous mediocrity of other look-at-me-pleases convinced that they “know”.
Coherent with his intuitions, Anderson-Kunert spent a lot of time of his residency at the Melbourne Electronic Sound Studio to simply discard the near entirety of the technical possibilities on offer; a silencing of alluring siren chants, in a way. He focused at last on a Moog System 55, a 12-oscillator monster considered the Mother of all Moogs by numerous experts. From the machine he concocted 30 minutes of intertwining waves extremely rich in intrinsic dynamics and massive partials.
Still, the result is classified as “reductive” in the press release; this might be true in terms of sonic design – minimal, to say the least – but certainly not as far as an enhanced neural activity is concerned. It’s a rewarding listening experience, if you just take it for what it is: an experiment in the juxtaposition of quietly puissant analog shapes with a measure of rudimental, if rather irregular non-melody. The whole fluctuates across spheres of subsonic amplitude and mind-numbing pulses.
Following a couple of hours with this music, you will feel suspended between theoretical meanings but also predisposed to more correct methods for depicting a simulacrum of “truth”. Which, as always, remains a product of pure fantasy.
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