Besom Presse is pleased to announce the release of “processions,” a double lp by composer, performer, and instrument-maker Werner Durand, with Amelia Cuni and Victor Meertens. Recorded and mixed in his home studio in Berlin from 2012-16, Durand offers four just-intoned drone works distilling global influence into compositions of singular beauty. The pieces presented here are rooted in Durand’s past work with Meertens (an Australian visual artist), a partnership that dates back to the early 90’s. Performed on an unlikely array of instruments including various self-made wind and reed instruments, sarod, mirliton, bi (a vietnamese free reed instrument), trumpet, and hammered electric guitar, the result is narcotic.
Each piece is a rich tapestry woven by timbral combinations that cut clearly defined swaths of the spectral field, yet cradle each other with mandala-like elegance. processions opens with Meertens’ hammered guitar percolating within the glacial flow of Durand’s omnipresent hum—like an embryonic Dreyblatt excitation set adrift in the bardo of LaMonte Young’s eternal music. Dhrupad singer Amelia Cuni’s voice enters, beckoning like an oneiric shepherd. As the record proceeds, Durand doubles down on his elemental sound—before long the listener, without realizing it, sits straddling a borderline in a hypnagogic state of fleeting consciousness.