Octavian Nemescu - Les États Du Temps Et De L'Espace 2 (2002)

Some more Octavian Nemescu, to follow on from the post of his earliest (digitally) available album a couple of weeks back.  As this one is obviously Volume 2 of something, it's worth quickly pointing out that Les États Du Temps Et De L'Espace 1 was a deleted late-90s CDR that's eluded my grasp ever since I first heard Nemescu, but will keep trying.  This collection was where Nemescu started releasing his 'Music Of The Hours' grand project in earnest - see this handy discogs list.  The string quartet compilation that features the initial Midnight piece is again - you guessed it - almost impossible to come by, so might as well start here.

On the previous post, I noted Nemescu's obsession with particular listening conditions that he prescribed for each piece.  Music Of The Hours was/is an attempt to take this even further, and reintroduce what he thought was missing from Western music (Indian classical music comes to mind as an obvious example where this remains): assigning specific times of day at which pieces ought to be played/heard.  That discogs list above gives an interesting summary of its ritualistic inspiration, and this extends to the how the music sounds, with the majority of the pieces topping the half-hour mark.  As the polar opposite of a night owl, I might seldom be awake to follow Nemescu's timings for the first seven pieces, but I've been enjoying the two on this disc anyway during the day.

First up here, then, is Quindecimortuorum for 1AM; it was composed in 1994, but there's no recording dates in the notes, and the wind ensemble is uncredited - odd oversights when the two pieces are explained in such intricate detail.  The woozy brass fanfares start off subtly, gathering complexity and some thunderous percussion as it progresses.  And here's the extremely odd thing about the progression of the piece, which I noticed straight away when taking the CD out its case: it's punctuated by lengthy silences, some several minutes long.  Nemescu explains that these are "offered as 'spaces' for invocation and meditation".  It can seem strange or unnecessary at first, but in the right headspace for concentration it works a treat.  Or you can just let your mind wander during the silences and then be pulled back into the piece whenever the music restarts.

The second track, Negantidiadua for 2AM (1995), for piano, sax, trombone, percussion and voice is even sparser at its outset, eventually establishing a low drone (later phased out for more pure silences) over which all kinds of sudden elements will burst onto the soundstage.  A sharp piano figure here, a blast of percussion there, a disembodied voice suddenly singing in Latin in a very odd affected manner; I've just now realised what this reminds me of in terms of the listening experience: very early Nurse With Wound, e.g. Ostranenie, The Schmurz or especially Dadaˣ.  In this case, Nemescu isn't including the surprise elements just for the sake of creating a surrealist soundscape, but invoking... something like... the tension between waking and sleeping, existence and non-existence, temporal distortions... I gave up trying to understand his weighty liner notes at this point, and just enjoyed the album for what it was: a couple of extraordinary adventures in sound & silence.

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Previously posted at SGTG:
Metabizantinirikon, Trisson & Sonatu(h)r
Split CD with Costin Cazaban