Im Hintergrund steht laut Begleittext eine kritische Auseinandersetzung mit Mechanismen der Informationsverarbeitung und -vermittlung. Inspiriert von der gleichnamigen künstlichen Intelligenz aus William Gibsons Mona Lisa Overdrive, thematisiert Novak, wie Systeme, die Klarheit und Orientierung versprechen – staatliche Transparenzinitiativen, soziale Medien, datenbasierte Kommunikationsformen – zunehmend dazu genutzt werden, Realität gezielt zu formen oder zu verzerren. Dabei wird auch der Akt des Aufzeichnens selbst zum Teil des Problems: Öffentliche Räume werden durch das Mitschneiden zu privaten Datenquellen, jede dokumentierte Stimme kann manipuliert oder in neue Kontexte gesetzt werden. Das Album ist, wie es ferner heißt, zugleich Produkt und Reflexion dieser Prozesse. Klangmaterialien lassen sich im performativen Kontext neu kombinieren, ganz so, wie Informationen auch jenseits ihrer ursprünglichen Bedeutung neu gerahmt und instrumentalisiert werden können. “Continuity” markiert eine Verdichtung dieser Dynamiken, ohne sie zu dramatisieren und lässt einen Strom entstehen, der seine Wirkung nicht aus der Konfrontation, sondern aus der konsequenten Offenlegung struktureller Widersprüche zieht.

“The legend of Theseus, who saved Athens’ children from the Minotaur, led to a commemorative pilgrimage involving the ship of Theseus, sparking a philosophical paradox: when does a ship, repaired piece by piece, cease to be the same entity? On my last album, I utilized the myth of Theseus’ ship as an ontological framework to tease at the nuances of sameness. Reality is elastic; it is a multifaceted composition that can be observed and interpreted, and altered, in an innumerable number of ways. The identity of an object or a moment is flexible, partially dependent on how it is perceived. And yet, because of my partial color blindness, dyslexia, and tinnitus, I can’t trust my own perception. There’s no real way to know how great the disparity is between my observed experiences and those of another. It is plausible then to suggest that there is no clear limit of how many pieces of our shared reality can be removed before it stops being just that. On The Voices of Theseus, I sought to further complicate this framework. First I invited artists Madeleine Cocolas, Lawrence English, FAX, and Bana Haffar to remix tracks from the album, challenging the boundaries of authenticity, identity, and transformation. While these artists were working on their remixes I had the opportunity to perform this body of work with a number of live vocalists, the last of which was G. Brenner. Our performance pulled me so far outside my comfort zone, that I felt this experience should not be limited to performance alone. It was this desire that led to me inviting G. Brenner to the studio to record new versions of four tracks from the album. Together these eight pieces create an alternate rendering of The Voice of Theseus, through different sets of eyes, ears, and perceptual differences. The Voices of Theseus invites listeners to question how these collaborators, and own their unique perceptions, might diverge from others’ highlighting the indeterminate nature of reality and the inherent uncertainty in shared experiences”. (Yann Novak)

“In Greek mythology, the legend of Theseus describes how the king-founder of ancient Athens rescues the children of his city from King Minos’ minotaur on the island of Crete. In commemoration, Athenians began a pilgrimage to honor his victory, taking the ship of Theseus and sailing it from Athens to Delos. It was with this tradition that a philosophical paradox about the historic ship was raised: As the ship was repaired, piece by piece, until it was no longer composed of any original parts, at what point could the ship no longer be considered the same entity? In recent years, I’ve become interested in exploring the perceptual differences I experience. While some of these differences—partial color blindness and dyslexia—have been with me my entire life, tinnitus caused by hearing damage is a relatively new change to how I experience the world. It is these sensory challenges which have shaped my artistic practice by creating what I call a perceptual insecurity—an uncertainty of how accurately I discern the world around me. The Voice of Theseus is my attempt to explore the obstacles I face in processing external sensory information. If I have trouble perceiving reds and greens, if I have trouble hearing certain frequencies, if I don’t interpret written language in a standard way, how closely can I experience reality in the way that others experience it? The album asks the listener to question how their unique means of perception and interpretation might differ from that of others. For The Voice of Theseus, I asked two of my favorite vocalists to assist with this experiment. Both Dorian Wood and G.Brenner recorded vocals for me to manipulate throughout the album. If their original audio is Theseus’s ship, the changes I make to their voices are like the Athenians replacing each of the original vessel’s pieces. And so, how far can these vocals be pushed while still remaining attached to the vocalists’ identities? Where lies the separation between the source materials and the objects they’re used to create? The myth of Theseus’ ship allowed me to tease at the nuances of how reality can be observed, interpreted, and altered in an indeterminate number of ways; it can be dismantled and rebuilt, many times over. And yet, because of my internal circumstances, a perceptual insecurity remains. As flexible as the true nature of an object or moment may be, inaccuracy looms. There’s no real way to know how great the disparity is between my observational experiences and another’s, and no clear limit of how many pieces of our shared reality can be altered—before it stops being just that”. (Yann Novak)

“My last album opens with a piece called A Ritual. I think of this piece as a somewhat aggressive, long-form meditation on intimacy and ecstasy. There’s a reason I think about it like this. The 19 minutes that comprise the track were taken from a much longer recording; a 2 hour improvisation I performed privately for my partner, Yann Novak. Performance is always a personal experience, even when offered communally, but this particular performance was very much about a shared moment, in an environment that foregrounded the personal. The low, undulating frequencies in the piece underscore a sense of the physical for me. I’d like to think it’s a work that dwells on upon the vibrational qualities of sound, and offers a respite within its mesh of rich harmonics, pushing a listener towards the ecstatic. For Ritual Variations, I reached out to friends and artists whose work I respect and admire for various reasons. I gave these seven artists, including my partner, access to the original 2 hour recording and invited them to create new compositions using it as source material. It was a chance for them to also consider the private, intimate nature of the recording itself.” (Robert Takahashi Crouch)

“On ‘Finding a Way to Live,’ I wanted to explore humanity’s instinctive, never-ending drive to recalibrate in order to endure an ever-changing world. The timing of this track’s release unavoidably connects this work to the coronavirus; however, I’m also interested in acknowledging that this pandemic is only the latest of many obstacles we’ve faced, both individually and collectively. I have learned to live with partial color blindness, learning disabilities, my queerness, drugs, sobriety, tinnitus, and many things in between. If we imagine life as a series of patterns that are too vast to see in the moment, we can acknowledge we have found a way to move through them. We can then also assume that no matter the obstacle, we can find a way to live in it. I composed ‘Finding a Way to Live’ similarly, using large patterns that can only be seen when looking at the piece as a whole, out of time. At its heart, drone music is about acclimating to one state in order to hone in and gain the sensitivity needed to perceive and appreciate the subtle changes. After a year of isolation, tracking and riding waves, I created this piece with the intention that it could occupy the liminal space we’re collectively inhabiting—both separately and together—with equal parts tension and hope.” (Yann Novak)

Die beiden darauf folgenden Beiträge von Strom Noir (aus der Slovakai) klingen dann aber dennoch wesentlich opulenter. Sowohl „Fihavanana“ als auch „Sundance“ bestechen durch unglaublich melodische Drones, die auf Gitarren basieren. Vielleicht ist Strom Noir ja der melodischere Bruder von Mirror. Hier scheinen die Assoziationen, die durch die Titel hervorgerufen werden – “Sundance” verweist wahrscheinlich auf die Sonnentanzzeremonie, die sich bei einer Reihe nordamerikanischer indigener Populationen findet, Fihavanana ist ein ein auf Madagaskar gebrauchtes Wort, das u. a. die spirituelle Verbundenheit zwischen Dingen bezeichnet – in den unglaublich warmen Drones ausgedrückt zu werden.

Emma Ya aus Kolumbien, die die zweite Seite eröffnen, sind stimmungsmäßig das genaue Gegenteil. Ging bei Strom Noir die Sonne auf, so erschauert der Hörer hier ob dieser aus finsteren Tiefen stammenden Drones. Hier fällt kaum ein Lichtstrahl – laut Website der Band bezeichnet der Name passenderweise einen schwarzen Planeten mit zwei Sonnen –, stattdessen ist das der Beitrag, der am ehesten einen rituellen Charakter hat. “The Golden Eye” ist ein mysteriöses, kaum greifbares Stück.

Abgeschlossen wird die Zusammenstellung von dem langen „Die Verwandlung“ von Karl Bösmann, einem Stück, das tatsächlich eine (Ver-)Wandlung durchmacht, ganz so, als wolle der auch als visueller Künstler tätige Bösmann tatsächlich einen Soundtrack für Kafkas Text, auf den in den Linernotes explizit verwiesen wird, komponieren. Wird die erste Hälfte noch von düsteren, teils unruhigen Streicherdrones (?) dominiert, die in ihrer Verdichtung im Ansatz an Xenakis denken lassen, finden sich sogar ansatzweise rhythmische Momente und vernimmt man auch kaum zu verstehende Stimmen, so wird der zweite Teil wesentlich rabiater und nähert sich dem Noise an. Wird hier Gregor Samsas Leidensweg vertont?

Vier Künstler mit unterschiedlichsten Inspirationen, aus denen ganz eigene Interpretationen des Drones entstehen, die aber wie schon auf dem Vorgänger perfekt miteinander harmonieren. Auf der Ebene der Materialität werden diese unterschiedlichen Ansätze vielleicht durch die vier verschiedenen farbigen Vinylversionen unterstrichen.

M.G.

Label: Drone