Lisa Barkas: Cinq Ponts

Released by INSUB on September 26th, 2024, as a cassette or Bandcamp download, it is a relief to welcome Cinq Ponts as it is the label's first release since Jürg Frey's impressive Circular music (Ext.no1-no2-Ext.no2) was released by the label on September 1st, 2023. Cinq Ponts comprises three tracks with a total playing time of just over forty-one minutes, a typical cassette playing time. The album's three tracks are performed solo by the Strasbourg-based musician Lisa Barkas who plays the hurdy-gurdy (Vielle a roue in French) and the bagpipes (cornemuses in French).

Barkas' instrumental practice developed in the back-and-forth between dance floors and noise festivals, listening to the heritage of the revival of traditional music, and through meetings with musicians from the alternative and improvisation scenes. She has collaborated with various artists including fellow bagpiper Lisa Käuffert, with whom she recorded a couple of pre-covid duo albums—Lo Becat (Soleils Bleus, 2017) and TRILLES (Soleils Bleus, 2021). She has also played with French drummer Jean-Baptiste Goeffroy, with whom she recorded the 2022 INSUB duo album Compressibilités.

The opening track, "De l'Eau," features Barkas on hurdy-gurdy throughout its 24:04 duration. After a plucked intro, it exploits the instrument's capacity to generate low-pitched and high-pitched drones simultaneously to create a soundscape that sounds like the work of several players on different instruments rather than one player alone on one instrument. The overall effect is mesmerizing and habit-forming. Although the cassette case lists the titles of three songs labeled "sources" of "De L'Eau," this information is listed primarily for academic interest.

Flipping the cassette reveals the 13:08 "Cinq Ponts" which is unmistakably from the same source as "De L-Eau" even though Barkas plays bagpipes on it, to similar effect. (See the YouTube clip below to sample Barkas' bagpipe playing in concert.) The album concludes with the 3:44 "Coda" which lives up to its title and ends the album, considered as a whole, Cinq Ponts is an album that handsomely repays repeated listening, the only way it could have been improved would have been to make it longer. Roll on the next one from INSUB and Barkas together...