Jerome Begin - Sandbox Percussion - "Wilderness"
Jerome Begin
Wilderness explores the intricacies of the acoustic-electric timbre spectrum in a manner which is rhythmically and musically stimulating.
Wilderness, the latest release by Sandbox Percussion combines a curious exploration of acoustic instruments with live-time electronics and highly theatrical writing. Composed by Jerome Begin in 2016, Wilderness is a multi-movement work originally written to accompany a contemporary dance production by Brian Brooks Moving Company. Begin, acclaimed for his theatre and dance scores, intrinsically incorporates a sense of motion into his music, which still comes across in a concert setting. Wilderness explores the intricacies of the acoustic-electric timbre spectrum in a manner which is rhythmically and musically stimulating.
The album starts off with quite a literal Entrance. The militaristic arpeggios of pitched toms create a sense of how much physical space the work encompasses, setting up the listener for the remainder of the piece. The Entrance by itself already establishes Begin's mastery of writing for percussion and implementation of live electronic processing, as well as Sandbox's virtuosic intensity and consistency in sound.
The first of the Cascades continue the piece. The three Cascades each function as interludes, cleansing the listener's aural palette and separating their following movements named for specific instruments. These homogenous-instrument movements fixate on adding electronic manipulation to a single percussion instrument in the work's setup, exhausting the expansive timbral possibilities. Wilderness spends time with kicks, crotales, roto-toms, snares and other drums. In Kicks, the quartet's members each play a different sized kick drum, which when supplemented with Begin's processing create a pulsing EDM bassline. The intricate quasi-drumline parts are complex to perform by themselves, and truly showcase Sandbox's mechanical sense of ensemble.
After Cascades III, Begin explores the electronic possibilities of crotales a second time in Crotale Birds. The pure, most likely bowed crotale sounds are clipped and stuttered with Begin's processing. The movement eerily borders on the natural and unnatural, with the uncanny valley-esque robotic bird calls sounding both familiar and perturbing. Wilderness, the titular track, comes out of the previous dying bird calls and culminates the album with an electronic ferocity. While at times the resultant synth sounds are accidentally reminiscent of early video game soundtracks, the music recalls earlier descending arpeggio figures, expanding them into complete melodies. Wilderness is an unrelenting, ten-minute barrage of attacks, with the electronic processing creating pitched melodic lines out of the various drums scattered across the quartet. Overall, it is a perfect way to end such a high-energy, large-scale work.
listen to Wilderness on major streaming platforms or on BandCamp here
Wilderness released 13 September 2023 on Better Company Records
© 2023 Brutal New Music Reviews
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