AKM 1972 / Mental Experience 2017
Aleatoric dance from the land of allemande, with shades of Krautrock creeping in to scare the faint of heart.
Call it “accidental” – as opposed to “incidental” – music: if the latter is used to enhance experience, the former is experience. Clarinetist Hans Kumpf, a mastermind behind AK, and his friends from Ludwigsburg’s pedagogical college knew it too well to not dwell on any particular notion, when they entered the studio and emerged, only three hours later, with this recording. A display of various avant-garde techniques, the album unfolds into a delightful drama before the listener’s ears, yet humor cropping up in the creepiest moments provides a lot of light here.
Running through the epic “Ron Do” where atonal, aleatoric, arcane apparitions of a percussive tune are so fiercely arresting, and “Impro-Vision” where tribal element and yelps arrive at the surface, the smile behind the sounds can’t be denied. It shines brightly despite the dirge of “My Ape & My Monkey” that will appeal to Damo fans, but “Hava” kicks it all off in a very cautious, overture-like manner, with woodwind crawling out of the woodwork to wreak creaky havoc on senses later on. There’s a rustic kind of chaotic motion, even commotion, in “Schace” whose dynamic is measured in bursts of near-silence rather than melodious noise, which only stresses the natural fiber of it all, as the ensemble didn’t use electronic sounds, no matter what the sonics in”Baz” may suggest.
So even though “AK” doesn’t imply a rifle on this record, the assault the album makes is pleasingly murderous. A killer thing for connoisseurs.
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