Annie Gosfield - Flying Sparks And Heavy Machinery (2001)

Appropriately-titled release from New York-based composer Annie Gosfield (b. 1960, Philadelphia).  This album, her second of four for John Zorn's Tzadik label, presents two works "developed in 1999 during a six-week residency in the factories of Nuremberg" designed to "combine art and industry".  The three-part, 42-minute EWA7 that takes up the bulk of the album is based on the mechanical sounds and rhythms of its titular factory where the premiere performance was held, with the 'Cylinders' portion taken from this original recording.

 

Engines whir into life in the opening section, gradually joined by metallic clangs developing into interlocking rhythmic patterns.  The passages of eerie subtlety in this first movement, with electronics by Ikue Mori, are particularly effective in contrast to the industrial-racket expectations that the next two parts deliver on.  By this point, with drving rhythms underpinning the other noises, comparisons with Einstürzende Neubauten are inescapable, but honestly, who cares - if you like this sort of thing, Gosfield puts it together really, really well, and it's such riotous fun to crank up loud.  

 

The shorter work that closes the album and provides its title takes similar inspiration from industrial sounds, but writes them in to a (slightly) more conventional context for string quartet and percussion quartet.  It's a nice conclusion to a very satisfying album which makes me want to listen to more of Gosfield's music (believe it or not, this one was a charity shop find, earlier this year).

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