XLP-002 Robert Vincs – Chaomorphic

From the infinite potential of chaotic silence, emerges sonic forms, shaped through the exhalation of breath and the interactivity of machine processes. Sublime and intense, these sonic gestures resonate with mental and emotional spaces beyond rational notions of music creation. Deep space, immersion and transcendence are possible when the listener surrenders to the textural, emotive and Zen nature of Chaomorphic.

Chaomorphic is a unique collision of post Ornette Coleman harmolodics*, free melodicism and computer driven interactive improvisation. Here, the focus is on melodic gesture and textural variation moving away from a more traditional concept of “metric” composition. The way digital technology is used in this release is intended to provoke Vincs into unfamiliar and uncertain artistic and psychic territory. The concept of authenticity is a central tenet of improvised music practice. This release explores the idea that artistic authenticity is never fixed but constantly shifting in relation to the uniqueness of every “now” moment.

Vincs’ music has been heavily inspired by a wide variety of world music practices including concepts arising from Zen which favour non-linear temporality and immersive experience. Chaomorphic draws on Vincs’ experience of the Australian landscape which in moments is transcendent and in moments terrifying.

Away from the certainty of an urban environment, the vastness and extreme wilderness of the landscape challenges the psyche to integrate with the land on it’s own terms; not as conqueror but as a conscious extension of the land itself. Chaomorphic is about ego dissolution and becoming integrated into Gaia’s embrace. Chaomorphic was recorded in a single session at the Brian Brown Studios in Naarm (Melbourne) Australia by Pat Telfer. Vincs improvised the “prima-materia” of this release via saxello (a ‘feral’ soprano saxophone with a half curved bell) and Akai wind controller initiating and responding to both the generative output of interactive algorithms that Vincs had programmed and, real time audio “provocations” generated by Telfer with the intention of opening new and unexpected possibilities for expression.

After more than a decade hiatus, Extreme returns with an exciting new release that continues the exploration of music and what is possible. Chaomorphic is a wonderful embodiment of that direction.

*Harmolodics – a theory that Ornette Coleman developed to sum up his ideas about the equality of rhythm, harmony, and melody — a compositional method that freed jazz from its dependence on European forms and returned it, in a way, to its roots in a call-and-response tradition.

*** PRESSED ON HI-FIDELITY 180 GM VINYL *** EDITION OF 300 ***