Three Amazonian Essays by Lieven Martens

 

A deep study into ethnomusicology that Lieven Martens is bringing on here, now as a re-issue of his long out-of-stock album is something of a milestone that is like a Sevre nominal standard.

Going back to a variety of influences such as Toru Takemitsu,  Ives, Joji Yuasa as well as recordings and techniques developed by Juan Alberto Arteche Guel's on his 1990"Amazonia" album, Martens has built his own language and understanding of the language of nature, and the codes that go together with a deeper sense of things expressed through those three tracks on the vinyl here.

The field recordings he used here and the electronic processing transports you into the realm that is hidden to the experience of an modern urban citizen. It is the narrative of the mystery between the lines and stanzas that the nature provides.

As with any of Lieven's music there is a deep listening element that crosses boundaries with some special kind of hauntology. As if to build a new language there is so much here to dwell on. Distant voices, a remix of the original and placing it in a new context. But not necessarily in the plunderphonic way or through its techniques. Instead a subtle, slowly evolving paraphrase of the original verse.

At times it is slow and sparse, somewhat muffled and muted, at other times it brings a feeling of an EAI genre where you are set to experience an improvisation that turns into some form of composition and blends excellently with the field recordings and everything goes into some sort of choral phrase that Popol Vuh would be probably using if they have started two decades later and stay away from taking the modals and idioms of ''new age music'' too seriously at times.

It's a beautiful album full of child-like magic and mystery, an enchanted trip into something both unknown and wonderful.

                                                             

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