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Cor Fuhler: Stengam

By Mark Corroto
April 5, 2007
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Cornelis Fuhler is an Amsterdam based improviser who, as a pianist, is comfortable playing swing to John Cage. This recording from 2006 is a solo piano session made with no electronics, no overdubs, and no electronic treatments. With that in mind, he has created a series of sustained tones and notes that are remarkable in both a technical aspect and as a sonic document of sound improvisation.

A true chameleon in the experimental scene, Fuhler has recorded with drummer Han Bennink and bassist Wilbert de Joode. Sonic manipulator Gert-Jan Prins and Fuhler make up The Flirts. He works regularly with the likes of guitarist Keith Rowe, violinist Phil Durrant, cellist Tristan Honsinger, and saxophonists Michael Moore and Tobias Delius.

Forgetting the remarkable premise for this session, Fuhler brings sustained echoey and foggy sounds by utilizing various ebow and super magnets applied to an acoustic grand piano. They create electromagnetic waves that perpetuate a resonance of energy and sound that can only be described as "electric. The remarkable spatial feeling created is one of deep mediation of machine dreams.

This solo piano recording is unlike any other. In fact, any resemblance between these sounds and that of a piano are quite coincidental. The dreamy states of spinning energy Fuhler concocts are devices simply to muse on the imponderable

Track Listing

North-South; Ferrous; Stengam: part 1; part 2; part 3; part 4; part 5; part 6.

Personnel

Cor Fuhler

Cor Fuhler: acoustic grand piano, preparations.

Album information

Title: Stengam | Year Released: 2007 | Record Label: Potlatch Records

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