There is improvised music that grabs you right by the guts, the connection to this music is immediate and direct. Often you can feel it; it sweeps you away, strikes right to the core, and is able to lift you into a different state of consciousness. Peter Brötzmann and Joe McPhee, might come to the mind, Matana Roberts and Mette Rasmussen represent a younger generation. But there’s also music that takes a more intellectual approach, it’s harder to access, more abstract, more conceptual. That doesn’t mean it can’t move you, though - it just does it on a different level. The classic example of this would certainly be Anthony Braxton. Christian Lillinger’s projects also work this way - and they do so in a thoroughly fascinating way, especially when it’s his Open Form for Society outfit.
Lillinger describes the second album of his project as conceived, condensed chamber music - an exploration of sonic possibilities featuring a specially developed ensemble, which can be rightfully called a who’s who of modern European improvisers (plus an American one): Kaja Draksler (celesta, upright piano), Elias Stemeseder (harpsichord, synthesizer); Georg Vogel (claviton), Anna D’Errico and Cory Smythe (piano) make up the keyboard section, Robert Landfermann, Jonas Westergaard and Petter Eldh are on the basses, Christopher Dell is on vibraphone, and Lillinger himself is responsible for percussion and the composition of the music. Added to this are electronic and electroacoustic enhancements, conducted via metronome. Characteristic of this music are highly condensed conceptual structures and rhythmic polyphony, yet at the same time there’s a springy openness that makes it possible to appreciate this music even without prior knowledge of music theory. Spaces of freedom emerge every now and then, in which individual shaping and independent interpretative decisions become possible - and it’s precisely in these moments that the music happens to be more tangible and exciting.
At the heart of the album is the 14-minute “Poliform” - OFFS II in a nutshell, so to speak. Driven by flickering percussion and bone-dry basslines, the keyboards duel and support one another, creating expansive textures, breaking them up with rapid runs, and ensuring that the focus is constantly changing. Space and time are permanently shifted; it often sounds as if a cassette was wobbling along in an old cassette player. This creates the impression of coexisting temporal structures and a multitude of perspectives; rhythmic and harmonic cells are analyzed as if under a magnifying glass, only to then rewind the composition and direct the gaze toward a larger whole. The music thus eludes immediate grasp because it undergoes maximum change through its minimal shifts. Free jazz clusters exist alongside airy, transparent passages; frantic drum patterns reminiscent of pinball machine sounds are attacked by heavy bass lines. Here and there, a swing passage flashes briefly; in various corners of the room, individual keyboard chords flare up, only to burn out again very quickly.
One can hear this album as a musical inquiry into the relationship of time, a question once posed by Karl-Heinz Stockhausen and discussed here by Lillinger, but one can also simply enjoy tracks like “Topping Abnormal” for their unusual beauty, or the punk attitude of “Vector“. Another possibility is to explore the psychedelic side of “Setzung” or the heavy metal influences of “Plant.” For this album is, quite simply, a lot of fun.
In contrast to the first release, where the separation in the studio was the focus, OFFS II is about the unity of a shared space. The recordings were made in the studios of Deutschlandfunk in Cologne and reflect a sonic live image in which the entire material (with only a few overdubs) resounds and lives in a single room.
Open Form for Society II is available as a double album on vinyl, as a CD and as a download.
You can listen to parts of it and buy it here.
You can also watch a teaser of the recording sessions:
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