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Kesherul Neg Pineg
Bad Alchemy 125 – Rigobert Dittmann
For KESHERUL NEG PINEG, drummer Peter Orins has teamed up with Petr Vrba, the prolific Czech electro-trumpeter who is constantly seeking new frictions and stimuli: with Mathieu Chamagne as 4&, with Birgit Ulher as Schallschatten, with Andria Nicodemou, with Zdeněk Závodný as Totoabas, with Škvíry & Spoje, with Rhizom Fighters, with Cinder from Cindytalk. The Book of Pig (microcidi 038 / Tour de Bras, TDB9014 / Do It Youssef!, LP) comes across as occult with ‘Mezaphar’ and ‘Narldeh.’ Indeed, Kescherul Neg Pinech Kegiteah Cifi Sed… is a black magic formula allegedly noted in the « Magia Ordinis Artium & Scientiarum abstrusarum » by Johannes Kornreuther in 1515 (actually around 1750), which, when repeated three times, summons the spirit ‘Mezaphzar’ (sic!). The two stage two pseudo-rituals with percussive scratching, rumbling, trickling, muffled tam-tam, murmuring with magical shells, and trumpet-electronic-spitting sounds, webs, and impulses, along with a necromantic trumpet. And apparently with the notion that the spirit world listens with the finest ears to see if anyone needs their services. In the second attempt, the ductus is more urgent; Orins taps and clicks rhythmic formulas or persistently grinds on metal, while Vrba operates a bubbling, steaming, chirping, rustling machine and makes the trumpet cackle, smear, and blare. But since ‘Narldeh’ should actually be Narledh, the invocation falls flat. Vrba does blow Orins’ whispers and soft micro-sounds with a dark, droning, tutting sustained tone and spitting bubbles. But the spirit remains in the machine and neither makes itself heard nor seen.
Multinational duo Kesherul Neg Pineg are out with the album « The Book of Pig », and this is a production that might be of interest also for fans of progressive rock. Or in this case, fans of progressive electronic music. This is an album caught somewhere between being minimalist, expressive and experimental, with drums, electronics and the trumpet as the tools used to create these landscapes. In this case two landscapes, each clocking in at the more than 20 minute mark. We get drones and cosmic sounds here, with various forms of expressive percussion details and experimental drum patterns complementing these. Static noises come and go, the trumpet makes itself a presence on a few and mostly rare occasions, and many of the passages flow by on a little bit of an ambient inspired stream. Albeit a stream of that kind filled with odd and eerie currents. An album to seek out by those who love and treasure experimental electronic music that explore landscapes and pathways of a more unusual kind.
Spontaneous Music Tribune – Andrzej Nowak
The meeting of Peter Orins with the Czech trumpeter and electronic musician Petr Vrba is hidden under the mysterious name Kesherul Neg Pineg, titled The Book of Pig. The musical content is even more intriguing, despite minor ambiguities arising from the fact that Vrba provides us with more synthetic and electroacoustic sounds here than phrases of the trumpet itself. Our journey, this time, is stretched over two sides of a black disc.
The recording opens with a patch of delicate ambiance, surrounded by a stream of rustling cymbals. An oneiric resonance cloud forms instantly, and the whole takes on dark hues, woven with both non-invasive portions of electronics and the acoustics of trembling, percussive minutiae. Over time, the first accents of percussive rhythm begin to appear in the gracefully shaped electroacoustic drone. Action chases action, though the whole—definitely linear—seems rather lazy and reluctant to escalate dynamics. In the second half of the over 23-minute improvisation, we hear sounds associated with the trumpet and its acoustic shell for the first time. The narrative now gains even more rhythm in its sails, though it still seems light and ungrounded. Only the pulsating bass bands in the finalization phase cause the improvisation to swell slightly and thicken. Though it ends devoid of percussive rhythm.
The second part initially sticks together from shreds of sound, barely audible snippets of phonation. The trumpet pulses with electronics, modest drumming on cymbals scatters the first seeds of rhythmic structure. The narrative, though quiet and fleeting, effectively builds up, taking over more and more of the potential sound spectrum. Each element of this play seems to be acoustic on one hand and saturated with synthetic matter on the other, and each carries a blade of rhythm. In the second phase of the improvisation, the accents are shifted towards acoustics for a while. The trumpet drowns in spasms, the percussion layers like a bat’s wings. The flow loses intensity but does not lose its rhythmic values. Over time, it regains synthesis—even effective rimshots on the snare drum sound like they’re coming from a cable. For a moment, everything resembles the sounds of a steam engine. After a minor climax, the improvisation burns out in a dense stream of ambiance, equipped with a substantial portion of acoustic phrases. The final word, of course, belongs to the latter.
Congleton Chronicle Series – Jem Condliffe
And onto avant-garde experimental jazz on the ever-interesting if not ever-listenable Circum-disk. When I say jazz, it’s only jazz in the sense that it’s improv and some people have instruments. Trumpeter Petr Vrba supplies electronics and Peter Orins is on percussion; he’s got a hard job because extracting any kind of rhythm from Vrba’s series of swooshes, throbs, beeps and clangs must be hard. Kesherul Neg Pineg promise “ritual reductionism, unsettling, gloomy, psychedelic grooves”. Somewhere in this continuous sound will be inspiration for others to extract it and use it in more conventional music. Fans of people such as Captain Beefheart or Pere Ubu might groove to this — it makes the latter sound like the Beatles, and “The Book Of Pig” would be the sounds under the vocals, melody and tunes. For fans of out-there jazz, classical and electronica.