speechless was my surprise, yesterday evening at the Swiss cultural center in Piazza Cavour, listening to Christian Zehnder. I spent an hour talking with him afterwards.
my attention was speechless to hear him tell of how, by studying a baritone, he discovered diplofonie (and our Demetrio Stratos) and then went to Mongolia to practice the chanting of monks (in some ways similar to the chanting of Hindu mantras ).
without words was his song last night: a warble sound, his whole body stretched to vibrate in the air column of its "entry tool." whole body used to sing. guttural voice came out of head, chest, diaphragm. often simultaneously. with the harmonic diplofonie Digeridoo which looked like a tightrope walker.
without words was the clarinetist who was with him, Don Li. A clarinetist friend nik Baertschi with whom he played well (it is developing a new wave of underground music at the turn of the Swiss avant-garde jazz, experimental electronic and mysticism), who improvised with the clarinet in B flat, and especially bass clarinet to stellar levels: Dolphy meets zorn meets Fripp (continuous loop that swayed with his mac and a keyboard that was used as a sequencer). the articulation of the language that he used the reed of Clarone percussively with a clean and crystalline harmonic control. The clarinet used as a column of air to create effects noisy to be looped and progressive exponential style soundscape.
speechless, I tell you. and who knows my logorrhoea know it's not easy to keep a couple of hours in silence.
