Customer Reviews

Michael Gordon: Decasia

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Michael Gordon's Decasia is a huge single movement work that simply, but relentlessly, explores the idea of decay. As usual, Gordon's spare musical vocabulary combines elements of rock, ambient, minimalism and sheer noise to create a mosaic of sound that is in your face and gone before you realize what has happened. Sort of like life. Similar in atmospheric ambiance to his string orchestra piece WEATHER (Nonesuch)-- Gordon uses an amplified and retuned orchestra to create what seems to be the impression of a piano that has crashed to the ground from a great height, with gripping strings, four detuned pianos, and massive winds and brass.

Gordon's Decasia lies at the heart of Bill Morrison's film of the same name--an 80-minute work created from restored nitrate footage re-photographed onto 35mm, which uses decaying found footage from the early days of film to investigate the human desire to transcend the limitations of earthbound existence. The abstract scenario follows the course of a life-cycle, beginning with 1927 footage by Sergei Eisenstein of a cesarean section and live birth, and includes shots from a mission school where Native Americans were taught discipline by nuns in foreboding black shawls.

At the 2001 premiere performance, the Basel Sinfonietta stood on a triangular pyramid 3 tiers high, completely surrounding the audience within. Produced jointly by Ridge Theater and Basel Sinfonietta, Morrison's film of black and white archival footage in various states of deterioration was projected onto material draping the structure.

The sound is Mahlerish without the melodrama, minimal without being boring, and huge - stratospheric harmonies clanging into one into another, large blocks of sounds shifting and falling - like a cross-fire hurricane, perhaps, but definitely something that is not going quietly into that good night. Decay may be an quiet internal process to some but here it is a loud, grunge-meets-garage public event. Gordon's music may lack the easy elegance of his Bang on a Can partner David Lang or the studied sophistication of his wife and fellow Banger Julia Wolfe, but it more than compensates for these absences through sheer, visceral power. This is uncompromising music for those who like it loud and with a back beat you can't lose.

This CD is my first introduction to the music of Michael Gordon, one of the founding triumverate of New York's Bang on a Can. Judging by this release I've missed something quite special.

Decasia was commissioned by the Basel Sinfonietta in Switerland, who premiered it as a multimedia event in 2001. Devoid of the visual content here, the music still impresses with it's originality and sheer sonic impact. The music combines the repetative structures of minimalism (albiet, not evenly repetative. There is an unpredictable quality about the repeated structures that is fascinating.) with the formalized chaos of Xenakis. The orchestra is electronically amplified and detuned, along with four detuned pianos. If at times, the work can veer a little too much in the direction of John Adams (section 4 sounds like it could be lifted from Harmonieleher) most of it remains distinctly original. The sense of steady pulse and rhythmic vitality make the work more accessible than much European avant-garde work, but the melodic and harmonic language of the work is decidedly more complex and challenging than anything written by the second or third generation minimlists like Nyman or Bryars. This is a work that deserves a hearing.

This piece is only my second acquaintance with Gordon's music, after the title track on Bang on a Can's excellent album, Industry--another tune about dissolution, I suppose, and one of the best tracks on that disc. To describe the musical language of Decasia, I might ask you to imagine Penderecki's noisiest stuff--or Stockhausen's Helicopter string quartet--crossed with a hardcore instrumental groove from an unpretentious rock band, by way of the late minimalists. It's pretty unrelenting for the whole 67-minute length, but the climax is tremendous, well worth the investment of time and energy. I was struck, listening to the piece for the first time, by the feeling that I was hearing something completely new and, somehow, very important.

My oldest son, aged 11, likes to have the radio on quietly (classical music) as he sleeps at night. One night I had to get up to turn the level of his radio down - it was so loud. But my son was fast asleep. What was this music I wondered? Was it that famous Honneger piece about trains? When I returned to my bed I put my radio on (earpieces so I didn't disturb my wife) and listened to see what was being broadcast. It went on and on. It clearly wasn't Honneger. But what was it? Steve Reich? It didn't develop, although it did change from time to time - it persisted. Gradually I became overwhelmed by the music. Was it music at all? It terrorised me. I had to turn it off - I could listen no more. But then I had to go back - I had to find out what it was. But I could only listen with one earpiece - I couldn't stand this sound enveloping me totally. I was, of course, half asleep - perhaps far more sensitive than I might normally have been.

I did find the sound compelling - and still I heard train sounds - steam trains - and, perhaps huge factory machines. I'm not sure about decay. But be warned, you, like me, might be terrorised as I was - enormously unsettled. Will I ever listen to it again? I am unsure. But it is certainly not something I will forget in a hurry.

I am surely in the minority, but after having seen the live production I believe that Decasia would be more powerful without the visuals, which were added by Bill Morrison after Gordon wrote the music. I find that the film has a very ad hoc, eye candy quality, albeit a mind-blowing one. I think Decasia would be that much more scary and powerful and mind-blowing if it was experienced in the dark, with the audience surrounded by the scaffold-seated musicians. With a certain amount of indebtedness to Glenn Branca's dark sonic nightmares, Gordon has taken his manic development techniques to new lows, which is to say new heights.

This may be the 21st century's first entry in the Great American Symphony sweepstakes.

In regard to the review above that says the music has nothing to do with the video, it should be known that the film was made AFTER the music was composed. Decasia (when presented with music and film) is not a box office movie, but rather a work of art, and as such the music or the video do not need to be mirror images of each other. The music adds to the film, and the film adds to the music. The idea that the two should be exactly the same comes from our traditional cinematic constructs--which create art for the sole purpose of making money (e.g. Horror Movies, Britney spears etc.). The ethos behind Decasia is not financially driven, but is rather a purely artistic one.

Now that I've made that point, I can say that Decasia is a fabulous work of art. Gordon's orchestration is formidable--thick, loud, and at times cacophonous. Obviously, Gordon doesn't view decay as a soft and delicate process. These clamoring sounds are partially created by having the orchestra tuned to three different pitches. A third of the orchestra is tuned to A=440 (or 442), a third is tuned a quarter-tone lower, and the last third is tuned a quarter tone above 440. The ending result creates a sharp dissonance resulting from the rapid oscillation of three different pitch centers.

I find that minimalism can frequently get boring due to the repetitiveness, but Gordon keeps everything interesting through unique orchestration, harmony, and a varied plethora of minimalist subjects. The music is very haunting, and hypnotizing. I recommend this recording to anyone looking for something new.

If there is one major problem with the post-Mahlerian totalist composition 'Decasia', is that it is not cinematic music. Originially composed for a film about the decay of past cinematic film fragments, and I suppose, our collective memory, the music evokes little, or nearly no mental imagery when listening to it. Hence it is not cinematic. And I listenened to it before I watched the film and its lack mental imagery heightened my curiosity to see the film and watch what images the composer was framing with music. The music somewhat depicts a factory but (later) has no ethnic flavor - there is a segment with a Turkish whirling dervish but no beat or rhythm or melody associated with the culture. Nor does the composer paint an image of the past silent films; heaven forbid, he wastes many opportunities to awaken nostalgia for the quieter times of 'silent' films and the lonely piano player plunking away at what he/she is seeing. Plus the film maker had many moments of aleatoric imagery which reminded me of a blend of biomorphic images that could have been painted by Yves Tanguay and Joan Miro. Was there any aleatoric music to 'sync' with the images? No. Not to be too literalistic, but the music seems to just steam-roll over the film with little reference to the images unfolding in front of your eyes. And the music is orchestrated too densely and overwelms the images; I most fervently believe this music should not be post-Mahlerian but should be rescored for a chamber orchestra ensemble - minus the electronics, because the score works best at its most reduced (spare) musical moments. I do not like to compare one composer to another but Michael Gordons' effort is not equivalent to the memorable film scores composed by Phillip Glass. Glass's music thrusts forward in time while Gordons' static composition flows like Molassis.

If you are getting (sic) the idea that I found this music, in conjunction with the images, or for that matter, the music alone, dissappointing, you are correct. Away from the film I found the music an excruciating listening experience and had a tough time listening to it. If you are thinking I am some sort of music wimp who runs from modernist music you are wrong: I own about 1,000 discs and most of them are contemporary classical, modernist, and twentieth century with an emphasis on music from the northern forebidding countries of Europe and the former Soviet Union. My favorite composer is Shostakovich (speaking of a great post-Mahlerian, film-music composer). My dislike for this composition stems from lost opportunities, (perceived) unimaginative moments and heavy-handed scoring.

On the plus side I found the music strangely, and painfully, memorable and encourage you to listen to it and decide for yourself. If you wanted to kill two birds with one stone rent the film DVD, and if your DVD player is connected to a stereo, first play the disc with the TV off. Afterwards turn the TV on and watch the music in conjunction with the video. If you then find it to your liking, purchase one or both because I realize you might just like it. As for myself, I will not listen to it often.

An after thought: what do you ask, or at least you may be thinking, is this authors' favorite film music? A: Howard Shore's soundtrack from David Croenberg's movie CRASH. It consists of strummed guitars, one flute and a small ensemble of strings. The orchestration is transparent; the music haunting, seductive and memorable. I wish I could say the same for Decasia.