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Area C, "The Planetarium Project"
This sprawling, oft-fascinating limited edition double album of live collaborations features some rather surprising detours from Erik Carlson's previous work. As all of the pieces were composed specifically for performances at Providence's Cormack Planetarium, most of those detours lead towards some appropriately space music and krautrock-influenced places. Carlson, ably assisted by an array of like-minded experimentalists, seems quite at home outside the confines of his usual sound and continues his recent string of impressive albums.
This is the first release in Eric Carlson’s alt-Space series, a planned succession of performances in non-tradition musical venues that are consciously shaped by the location itself. All of the works were composed and improvised (in almost complete darkness) around planetarium displays that Carlson designed with the staff. Aside from the obvious embrace of space-themed sounds (Eric uses samples of radiation, radio emissions, and other thematically appropriate sources), the performances on this album were further inspired by the blurring effects of the planetarium’s domed roof.
The first of the four 30 minute pieces is “The Basin of the Heavens,” a collaboration with Mudboy (Raphael Lyon). It begins with sustained, shimmering guitar and harmonium ambiance. Gradually, some tension and phantom melodic movement is added with passing tones and color is provided by Carlson's fragile web of treated guitars and Lyon's psychedelic organ noodling. As the song snowballs in intensity, it becomes conspicuously more and more like a freaky krautrock jam before the bottom drops out and it morphs into constantly shifting proggy ambience. However, around the 20-minute mark, things get a bit crazy and Eric and Raphael briefly erupt into a flurry of wildly panning radio emissions before easing back into their pulsing, jangling trippiness. Carlson makes quite a few unexpected (yet skilled) transitions on this album, and this piece is no exception, as it ends with a elegantly beautiful and floating coda that favorably calls to mind both Brian Eno’s Apollo and Eric Carlson’s own Charmed Birds album.
“Messier Object 45” is the first of two appearances by Black Forest/Black Sea’s Jeffrey Alexander (the title refers to the Pleiades, incidentally). It commences with a subtle, glimmering guitar loop and a great deal of cosmic and heavily delayed ambience and slowly builds into some throbbing, quietly intense, and rather menacing space rock. Oddly, Carlson and Alexander soon opt to take the music into much less interesting quavering ambient territory for a rather lengthy and momentum-killing stretch. Thankfully, it fades out around the 15-minute mark and the song starts again with a haunting duet between Eric’s melancholy minimalist guitar and some tortured howls and squawks that likely emanate from one of Alexander’s homemade instruments. Ultimately, it coheres into a droning and coruscating outro of layered guitars before fading out for the final time.
Jeffrey appears again on “Cassiopeia” alongside his bandmate, cellist Miriam Goldberg. It begins with a hobbling, yet insistent, plucked cello pattern lurking beneath a seething cloud of surprisingly harsh electronics and bow scrapes. The presence of Goldberg and her cello is quite welcome: she cuts through the heavily-processed and somewhat detached sounds surrounding her both violently and beautifully, resulting in the strongest and most dynamic piece on the album. As with all the previous songs, “Cassiopeia” consists of several movements, the second of which is extremely minimal and consists of a repeating plucked string pulsing beneath a host of creaks, scrapes, and whines. Then, unexpectedly, the trio launches into a mesmerizing and rather devastating reprise of the eerie middle section of “Messier Object 45.”
Carlson is joined by Eyes Like Saucers’ Jeffrey Knoch for the closer, “Lesser Dog, Greater Still,” which notably uses a harmonium yet again for its droning foundation. There are a few moments when the droning becomes too amorphous and edgeless for my liking, but the duo wisely disrupt the tranquility with crackling electronics and short wave radio before it gets boring most of the time. Despite those occasional missteps, the piece becomes quite compelling around the halfway point, as ominous electronic bleeps converge into a pulsing rhythm and Carlson contributes some uncharacteristically frenzied guitarwork (beautifully augmented by some melancholy harmonium by Knoch). However, the crescendo is unexpectedly derailed by the sudden appearance of an off-kilter and wheezing drum machine and the weirdly psychedelic and ethnic-sounding interlude that follows. Gradually, it is enveloped by some gently droning guitar and static-y radio and fades out amidst some forlorn harmonium and scraping strings.
Obviously, a mere CD can’t hope to capture the majesty and impact of such site-specific and visually enhanced performances, but the material collected here is quite memorable and almost uniformly excellent regardless. It is hard to believe that this is only the first of Eric Carlson’s series. The Planetarium Project sets the bar intimidatingly high for the next installment. I wish I lived in Providence.
samples:
- Area C and Mudboy – The Basin of The Heavens
- Area C and Black Forest/Black Sea – Cassiopeia
- Area C and Eyes Like Saucers – Lesser Dog, Greater Still
