appalachian anatolia

simon reynell entrevista a d’incise

A 40-minute solo piece for ‘modified guitar’ written by the Swiss composer d’incise for the Chilean guitarist Cristián Alvear.
Perhaps more than a strict composition this piece is a conjunction of a technical frame and a conceptual input, and the own vision of the player. It works on tuning and de-tuning, a different set-up of the strings, on harmonics and pitch frictions and on the influences of music from very various origins and the transposition of gestures inside a reduced field of possibilities.
It might develop as a form of raga, of perpetual variations of determined material, but it remains a guitar alone, it’s strings resonating, nothing else.
Laurent Peter, a.k.a. d’incise (Geneva, 1983), drifting musician, grew up inbetween dub sound system and experimental electronic music. Sound explorer, he has no perticular instrument, using whatever can be considered as such, softwares, recordings, objects, percussions, harmonium, etc. He’s interested in radicalism, reductionnism, repetitions and conceptual approaches, building specific set-up for each new occasion, in improvised or composed context.
He tends to extract the most tiny details of the elements, appreciates slowness and obsessive explorations of simple processes.

reseñas:

"At first, Appalachian Anatolia (14th century) seems tentative. Cristián Alvear plucks the same few notes repeatedly, and hinting at but not quite resolving into a melody. The figure shrinks and his playing becomes quieter, as if hesitating. But since Alvear has become a go-to guy in recent years for contemporary composers who need a classical guitarist who can not only play what they request but go beyond the score, the hesitation must be part of the plan. And then a sonic halo seems to form around his playing. The notes seem to radiate, and the point of what he is doing becomes clear; the sound is the point."