The art critic Walter Pater once said that all art constantly aspires to the condition of music. You could also argue that all musical instruments ultimately aspire to the condition of the human voice. We want instruments to sing and ring, to howl and growl, to serve as a conduit for the artist’s emotions. This is something the American singer Eliza Bagg, AKA Lisel, has done on her latest album, a piece of chamber music where the ensemble comprises her multitracked voice, fed through myriad effects units. However, this album also asks fundamental questions about the human voice. Once it has been drenched in digital delay or fed through software such as Ableton, is this a mere simulacrum of the human voice or the real thing? If it has been sampled and radically manipulated, is it just a synth voicing?
On Immature, a series of wordless, interconnected major-key phrases are woven together to create a spooky, Wicker Man-style folk chant, each line Auto-Tuned to give it a disquieting cyborg wobble. On Stalactite, a joyous, full-throated lead vocal is put through effects that make it shimmer and sparkle like the accompanying Moog synth. One at a Time sees her repeating the same four-word phrase until it becomes a Dada-esque babble of reverb-drenched syllables.
Bagg is a classically trained singer who has worked with artists as diverse as Meredith Monk, John Zorn, Esperanza Spalding and Lorde, and like many contemporary composers, she is fascinated by links between modern and pre-Renaissance music. At the Fair starts as a piece of medieval liturgical music that introduces Philip Glass-style arpeggios and slowly morphs into subtractive minimalism; Plainsong sounds like a Gregorian chant that has been sliced and diced by J Dilla. Lisel never uses technology to hide vocal imperfections. Instead, she exploits technology’s glitches and flaws. She has created a beautiful album that serves as a valley between authenticity and artifice.
Also out this month
London guitarist Harry Christelis’s third album Nurture the Child/Challenge the Adult (Clonmell Jazz Social) features compelling ambient music pitched somewhere between In a Silent Way-era Miles Davis and late-era Talk Talk, mixing drones and electronic effects with the exploratory solos of trumpeter Christos Stylianides.
Evicted in the Morning (Disciples Records) is an intriguing collaboration between synth-playing Iranian brothers Mo and Mehdi Mehrabani-Yeganeh – AKA Saint Abdullah – and Brooklyn-based drummer Jason Nazary. Recorded live in New York, it is a beautiful blend of limpid synth explorations and skittery rhythmic accompaniment, with two tracks featuring rumbling low-end contributions from Swedish double bassist Petter Eldh.
