STEPHAN MICUS - Winter's End
ECM 359 2771
Stephan Micus: Chikulo, Nohkan, 12-string Guitar, Tongue Drums, Voice, Kalimba, Sinding, Charango, Ney, Sattar, Tibetan Cymbals, Suling.
Recorded 2018-2020 at MCM Studios
Anyone familiar with Stephan Micus will recognise the long list of instruments with which he creates his music. Each instrument has its own traditions, its own sounds and its own demands on the musician. I suppose you either submit to these traditions and demands or reinvent them. On this set, Micus takes the Chikulo (a bass xylophone, with 4 notes, from Mozambique) and builds his set around its buzzing reverberating sound (Track 9 is called ‘Oh Chikulo’ and the instrument features of 7 of the 12 pieces). He also plays instruments from Gambia, Central Africa, Egypt, Japan, Bali, Xinjiang, Tibet, Peru – and a 12-string guitar. Like several instruments in his collection, Micus’ chukolo was purpose-made for him (the tongue drums he made himself). This gives each instrument a uniqueness and a quality that reflects Micus’ personality. This personality is conveyed through the multi-tracking of his own voice to create a choir that he uses on several pieces.
The album has a short Japaneses poem about a child walking in the snow rather than on the clear road. And this preference for walking one’s own path (even when there are easier routes to take) characterises Micus’ music-making. Taking as a metaphor ‘Walking in snow’, track 2, (and, in a sense, a companion piece, ‘Walking in sand’, track 11) the pieces give the sense of a journey. One which begins with an ‘Autumn Hymn’ and ends with a ‘Winter Hymn’, suggesting perhaps a circumnavigation that brings us near to (but not exactly) where we started. Along the journey new sounds, new impressions, new instruments are discovered and distilled into the experience that Micus conveys in each tune.
What I find compelling about his playing is the way that he seems able to assimilate the musical traditions inherent in each instrument, and to do so in ways that feel neither like pastiche nor adulteration. It is not that he is taking these instruments and forcing them into alien contexts; but he is cajoling them into living and breathing in the spaces that he invents.
Reviewed by Chris Baber
ECM 359 2771
Stephan Micus: Chikulo, Nohkan, 12-string Guitar, Tongue Drums, Voice, Kalimba, Sinding, Charango, Ney, Sattar, Tibetan Cymbals, Suling.
Recorded 2018-2020 at MCM Studios
Anyone familiar with Stephan Micus will recognise the long list of instruments with which he creates his music. Each instrument has its own traditions, its own sounds and its own demands on the musician. I suppose you either submit to these traditions and demands or reinvent them. On this set, Micus takes the Chikulo (a bass xylophone, with 4 notes, from Mozambique) and builds his set around its buzzing reverberating sound (Track 9 is called ‘Oh Chikulo’ and the instrument features of 7 of the 12 pieces). He also plays instruments from Gambia, Central Africa, Egypt, Japan, Bali, Xinjiang, Tibet, Peru – and a 12-string guitar. Like several instruments in his collection, Micus’ chukolo was purpose-made for him (the tongue drums he made himself). This gives each instrument a uniqueness and a quality that reflects Micus’ personality. This personality is conveyed through the multi-tracking of his own voice to create a choir that he uses on several pieces.
The album has a short Japaneses poem about a child walking in the snow rather than on the clear road. And this preference for walking one’s own path (even when there are easier routes to take) characterises Micus’ music-making. Taking as a metaphor ‘Walking in snow’, track 2, (and, in a sense, a companion piece, ‘Walking in sand’, track 11) the pieces give the sense of a journey. One which begins with an ‘Autumn Hymn’ and ends with a ‘Winter Hymn’, suggesting perhaps a circumnavigation that brings us near to (but not exactly) where we started. Along the journey new sounds, new impressions, new instruments are discovered and distilled into the experience that Micus conveys in each tune.
What I find compelling about his playing is the way that he seems able to assimilate the musical traditions inherent in each instrument, and to do so in ways that feel neither like pastiche nor adulteration. It is not that he is taking these instruments and forcing them into alien contexts; but he is cajoling them into living and breathing in the spaces that he invents.
Reviewed by Chris Baber
