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Thursday, December 26, 2019

Cyanobacteria & Hübsch - Are You an Orchid or a Dandelion? (Toxo Records, 2019) ****

By Stef

The liner notes describe the music as "music evoked from an underworld and only whispered to the surface", and this is actually quite an accurate description. Italian musicians Renato Grieco on drums and Francesco Gregoretti welcome German tuba player Carl Ludwig Hübsch for an otherworldly trio - or is it underworldly? - that produces the lightest of sounds from their heavy instruments, creating a sensation of organic growth and interaction.

Gregoretti is an avant-garde percussionist who has several bands with similar names: "Grizzly Imploded", "Strongly Imploded" and "Oddly Imploded" (with a recent album on Shhpuma). Renato Grieco's discography is more limited, with more releases as the sound engineer than as a musician, but in a context like this, that may be an advantage. Hübsch no longer needs introduction, appearing with his tuba and idiosyncratic view on music on more than 120 albums. 

The title of the album refers to a book by pediatrician Dr. Tom Boyce on education, starting from the premise "that some people are like dandelions — able to thrive in just about any environment. Others are more like orchids: when conditions are harsh, they tend to wilt. But when conditions are right, they actually do even better than their hardier peers". 

On the five tracks, they answer the question by presenting other flowers and plants, each with their own nature and complexity, showing that there is more to this world than stereotypes. 
  • Epiphyte  a plant that grows on another plant, especially one that is not parasitic
  • Calotropis is a genus of flowering plants in the dogbane family
  • Solanum is a large and diverse genus of flowering plants, which include three food crops of high economic importance, the potato, the tomato and the eggplant
  • Camellia is a genus of flowering plants in the family Theaceae
  • Silene acaulis, known as moss campion or cushion pink, is a small mountain-dwelling wildflower that is common all over the high arctic and tundra in the higher mountains of Eurasia and North America
As mentioned in other albums on which Hübsch performs, the music could be the soundtrack of the undergrowth in tropical forests, slowly growing, unfolding, entertwining, branching in different directions, unpredictable yet without loosing its essence, giving cover to skittering critters and creatures. Like nature, music is endless, impossible to categorise or to fathom: it can only be experienced and savored. 

This will not be for everyone's ears, but if you're open to uncommon sounds, there is a lot to enjoy here. 


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