Just found a review of 反之亦然 Vice Versa The Sound Projector Last heard from Goh Lee Kwang, the Malaysian sound artist, in late 2009 with Hands which he made for his own Herbal International label. Like Richard Garet he also makes installations, and this dimension of his creativity shows up in his very immersive music which clearly aims to create an “all-around-you” effect. In the case of _, And Vice Versa, he does it by submerging us in a gigantic bowl of vague and muffled music as if we were goldfish, or perhaps more accurately a type of mudfish. That’s the impression given by the two longest pieces here, of which ‘wEIghtOfdUst’ is 15 minutes while ‘wEIghtOfwAx’ lasts for a generous 37 minutes, moving us spatially from one end of the art-cannister to the other, feeding us only on conceptual vapour and blanked-out clues printed on empty sheets of newspaper. Disorientation, uncertainty, and time-displacement may all be relevant keywords here. Although Garet’s installation work has been likened by other writers to mind-washing or thought-control experiments, Kwang wins the golden biscuit for his vivid realisation of a sensory deprivation tank here. It’s a laudable aim, although the benchmark of quality in this area has not been surpassed since 1999’s Music for an Isolation Tank by Fennesz, Zeitblom and Rantasa on Rhiz Records. Kwang also provides variations on his theme with ‘AclOsErlOOkOnwhItE’, a 5-minute noiser which has the nerve-shredding jangliness of a thousand alarm clocks, and ‘EndlEss’, a little hymn to the power of entropy and decay. While still minimal in tone this at least has more definition than the afore-mentioned cotton wool mind-swaddlers. Come to that, ‘EndlEss’ is digital-glitch supreme; it would feel right at home on a Raster-Noton compilation, if it were a little more mechanical in its aims. It resembles the brain of a computer who wishes it were a begonia plant. There’s also the rather shrill tones of ‘jUctIOn’, which we assume was produced by the same inscrutable production methods, yet resembles the cries of a seagull flying backwards in time over the Bermuda Triangle. There is a pronounced contrast of tones across this CD, which is reflected visually in the artworks by Wong Min Lik (fluffy, soft, pastel tones) and those by Wong Eng Leong (disturbing, stark, monochrome). - Ed Pinsent - herbalinternational.blogspot/2011/12/1103-goh-lee-kwang-and-vice-versa.html
Posted on: Thu, 23 Oct 2014 01:21:08 +0000
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