2021 CD produced by Furniture Records
YOU ARE SAFE and COME TO ME are the first two collaborative tracks by Danish composer/artist Tobias R. Kirstein and American composer/artist John Duncan.
The release, consisting of two long compositions, on the Dutch record label Moving Furniture, is based on expanding both textual and spatial horizons. TR Kirstein (TRK) had the idea (on the day of the death of legendary acid rocker Roky Erickson) that he could build an album on the simple repetition of the phrase – you are safe -, supporting it with a sound background. John Duncan expands the verbal part, adding questions and additions; in addition, he changes his timbre when phrasing (at times, exhilarating me with sheer despair), which has a very striking effect in the context of this extremely minimalist music. On the other hand, it would be rather pointless to talk about the verbal side if the music did not grow meat on its bones. TRK’s music does not aim to offer tectonic changes; visually, one would not imagine that he – taking the context of the ocean as a help – would descend vertically from a low continental shelf into the depths of the ocean at the end. Or if — then he is already in the depths from the beginning, surrounded by immense emptiness, pressure and cold. Delicate low-bass vibrations emphasize this heaviness; here there is this low-intensity ghostly shear velocity, which once strengthens, then weakens again; expands its area and contracts. Seemingly simple physical laws, which, when actualized here, twist matter. Channeled through filters, the artist changes the tonality of the sounds, which again creates emotional changes in the given context. This is neither a feeling of joy nor sadness, but a shift into stillness, in which emptiness and separation take over the subject. There is no longer any point in looking back — look forward, create a new universe. — Recent Music Heroes, Estonia
