EPILOGHI | Arturas Bumšteinas

Sound designer, contemporary music composer and conceptual artist born in Lithuania but ever travelling and truly omniescent person - Arturas Bumšteinas has just put out a really innovative album. Maybe the word  "innovative" is not perfectly fit for the set of so well composed set of tracks that truly ruled my evenings with latest cds to review. Wholesome and grainy, full of spices and essences of ....food. Why food comes to my mind? Well because wonderful albums are really nourishing in a gourmet style blending references of his inspirations with wit and great craft. Laconic essences of squelching belches and scratches as a reference to Luigi Russolo's work give the feeling of organic touch - present and poetic musique concrete symphony of scratches, elaborately prepared and treated with a minimal touch of electronic preparation comes along with almost baroque keys later on.
Just like in gourmet style of food - Arturas digs deeper into inspirations that have no reference elsewhere - in this case it's the life's work of Jacopo Peri’s opera “Dafne” (1598) by many deemed as the first opera ever in a perfect match of  René Descartes’ philosophical treatise “Passions of the Soul” (1649). I wouldn't say that I am fan of Descartes - actually the opposite but the way Bumšteinas puts the strings with voices is just graceful travestation of Cartesian dychotomy between biological essence and the rational human mind - hard bites of prepared strings with vocalisation of female voices of etheral touch.
Track 5 is a calleidoscope of colour and flair with melodious motive and whizzing noises in the background which surprised me positively a lot as it has a very unique decorative character and really touching when you consider sombre compositions that was the usual Arturo's trademark.
Track 6 uses the baroque style keys again which set up nicely with slow deep movements in a minimalistic style.
Track 7 based on treated acoustic noises and whizzing background reminds me a bit of Jeph Jerman's work - minimalistic - unmusical sounds composed into an entity that has its own colour and tension - not that easy to make considering how little means you have and how much weight you need to express.
Again - very postive surprise - with respect to what Arturas did before and I hope such surprises will continue. Thank you.