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CD Feature/ Gunter Adler: "Douches Dames"

   January 15th 2009, by Tobias   | View Comments

Douches Dames is a blithe confection of field recordings culled from the innards of an ancient indoor pool in Brussels of the same name. Today, a spot of plastic surgery has transformed the swimming pool into an Art Nouveau that, among other things, plays host to the eclectic art laboratory Bains::Conective.

Adler, himself an experimenter with sounds synthetic and otherwise, originally conceived this work as an installation piece, which was accompanied by the trapezoidal patterns of visual artist Isabelle Rouquette. What one finds on this, the ensuing audio document, are hyptatonic scales and long-form sustained tonalities that purse a droning halo of sound. While at first it sounds tightly sequenced, adventitious elements do appear, merge, and drift across the sound-field, creating a breezy forward motion.

The atmospherics of the second work, meanwhile, give rise to a sinking feeling, as though a sudden change in air pressure has occurred. While remaining in a similar cloud-space on the third and final piece, impulsive fluctuations bring it closer to an air of frenetic motion. These persistent changes, conjoined with some perceptive processing and satisfying synthesis, result in a short work that is shadowy and precise in its rendering of the ravages of time.

By Max Schaefer

Homepage: Gunter Adler
Homepage: 1000Fussler