Stots
by Lukas Simonis
Z6, Rotterdam, The Netherlands, 2006
Audio CD, 16 tracks, $9.99
Z6 3312.
Reviewed by Stefaan Van Ryssen
Hogeschool Gent
Belgium
stefaan.vanryssen@gmail.com
In the course of many years of listening
to classical, popular, experimental, strange,
semi-weird and utterly weird recorded
sounds, I had come to believe that nothing
could really surprise me anymore. Now
I met Lukas Simonis Stots.
It shakes my belief, and it forces me
to recategorise my experiences because
until today I didnt have a group
of familiar-and-weird or recognisable-and-alien
records or CDs. So, you may ask,
what happened? What is so special about
Stots?
Superficially, the CD is structured like
a rock album (Simonis has worked with
a number of bands at the fringe of the
rock scene), with 16 tracks of approximately
4, each having its own title and
identity. Its material is drawn from field
recordings, voice, guitar and cello improvisations,
electronics and every other conceivable
source. The mixes arent especially
exceptional. No extreme dynamics, no outlandish
rhythmsas far as there is
a rhythmand no spectacular
tempo. Most of the score, if there were
one, would show the mezzofortes and andantes
of a civilised conversation between very
imaginative friends. And that defines
exactly the atmosphere of this music.
It is narrative and descriptive, speculative
and conversational. And it is like an
essay in the philosophy of music, not
in prose but in actual sounding facts
and statements. Translated in my own words,
its theorems would be:
1) Listen to hear. If you dont listen,
you will simply not hear what is on the
record. It vanishes.
2) Be aware that what you hear is something
else than what someone else hears and
more specifically, differs from what the
composer heard.
3) Construct your own meaning. E.g. do
not take the meaning I assign to the sounds
on this album for granted.
4) Do not feel surprised when you hear
in a batch of foreign language sounds
phonemes that you recognise as coming
from your own tongue; as if, in the middle
of a Japanese phrase, you suddenly hear
a few English (or in my case: Dutch) words.
According to Lukas Simonis, the point
of departure for making the whole song
cycle was the conscious misunderstanding
of language, coming from the idea that
you can never say exactly the same thing
in a different language (so I love
you means something else than je
t aime). In my opinion,
he has absolutely succeeded in conveying
that message, even if he had to use the
most ambiguous of all languages to get
it across.