Daniel Menche - Guts
An X-ray image of Daniel Menche's dog Arrow serves as the cover of Mensche's latest in his long history of releases, 'Guts'. Based on the title and cover image, you might expect Guts to feature biological sounds as his source material, and this wouldn't be the first time for Menche to create sound using biological sources. On 'Guts', however, Menche is credited as performing on 'Abused and Thrashed Piano Guts' and he abuses this piano to produce a wide variety of sounds from drones to percussion to clips that sound almost like human voices.
On the digital and CD versions of 'Guts', the album opens with 'Guts 2x4', a 10-minute track that immediately opens with high volume and intensity percussion sounds and squeals.
Ever-present, though, are recognizable piano sounds like the metallic pulsation of open bass strings. This is noise, to be sure, but though many of the sonic layers are twisted and processed into something almost entirely alien, Menche never lets you forget for long that everything here originates from a piano.
Throughout the opening track, the sound is relentless but dynamic. Processed layers move in and out almost imperceptibly, and the piece ends in a completely different place than it began.
The other tracks of 'Guts', which each clock in at around 19 minutes, begin more quietly. Drones and bass rumbles build slowly but steadily, and organic layers of piano sounds that wouldn't sound out of place among the compositions of musique concrete pioneers are joined by more intense, heavily processed layers.
Each of these pieces becomes more demanding until reaching a crescendo of organized noise. Still, despite all the processed layers of sound that build upon one another, readily distinguishable piano sounds are always present.
This is one of the great successes of this release and a testament to Menche's craftsmanship: he creates a dynamic, rich palette of noise while keeping the listener aware of the underlying source of his work. 'Guts' is loud, intense, and ever-changing. Listen to it loud. Feb 22 2012
On the digital and CD versions of 'Guts', the album opens with 'Guts 2x4', a 10-minute track that immediately opens with high volume and intensity percussion sounds and squeals.
Ever-present, though, are recognizable piano sounds like the metallic pulsation of open bass strings. This is noise, to be sure, but though many of the sonic layers are twisted and processed into something almost entirely alien, Menche never lets you forget for long that everything here originates from a piano.
Throughout the opening track, the sound is relentless but dynamic. Processed layers move in and out almost imperceptibly, and the piece ends in a completely different place than it began.
The other tracks of 'Guts', which each clock in at around 19 minutes, begin more quietly. Drones and bass rumbles build slowly but steadily, and organic layers of piano sounds that wouldn't sound out of place among the compositions of musique concrete pioneers are joined by more intense, heavily processed layers.
Each of these pieces becomes more demanding until reaching a crescendo of organized noise. Still, despite all the processed layers of sound that build upon one another, readily distinguishable piano sounds are always present.
This is one of the great successes of this release and a testament to Menche's craftsmanship: he creates a dynamic, rich palette of noise while keeping the listener aware of the underlying source of his work. 'Guts' is loud, intense, and ever-changing. Listen to it loud. Feb 22 2012
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