Altered Zones

Thomas Ankersmit is a saxophonist, electronic musician and installation artist based in Berlin and Amsterdam who combines saxophone work with analogue synth and computer improvisation, and has previously worked with the likes of Jim O’Rourke and Kevin Drumm. Valerio Tricoli is a Berlin-based composer and improviser, working in the tradition of music concrete. Put these two musicians together, and a picture (or sound) begins to form in your mind about what can be expected from their first time collaboration, Forma II. The LP was composed and recorded in Berlin from 2008-10 and consists of electroacoustic pieces composed mainly from analogue synth material and overdubbed sax, but sounds range "from metal foil floating on ultrasonic sound-beams, to mechanical clickers recorded in the abandoned radar domes at Teufelsberg." "Takht-e Tâvus" is an exquisite demonstration of Ankersmit and Tricoli's instrumental and timbral pallete. The track awakens to almost tactile layers of synths that are delicately balanced with the presence of negative-space. Gusts of saxophone vibrato blow across these synth landscapes, morphing them as they go from sounds as crystalline and calm as the surface to a mountain lake, to denser, more urgent gatherings of noise. In these subtle interactions between stasis and movement, "Takht-e Tâvus" finds its vibrancy. --Daniel Gottlieb, Altered Zones

MP3: Thomas Ankersmit & Valerio Tricoli: "Takht-e Tâvus"

Forma II is out now through PAN Records