Bob Gilmore

I was saddened to hear of the recent death of the musician and musicologist Bob Gilmore. I first became aware of Mr Gilmore in the pages of the Journal of Music (when it still had pages). His columns there could be combative but were always intriguing. I saw him live during the course of the Ergodos: Off Grid festival in 2009. At that he played with his Trio Scordatura, fascinating me with his introduction to the pieces played and coming across in person as considerably more soft-edged than in print. He also co-programmed one of the pieces at the festival, a performance of James Tenney's In a large, open space. I bought the Trio Scordatura's album Dubh shortly after that festival, an album combining strange tunings, electronics and non-standard classical vocals to create a very atmospheric sound. I have regrettably somewhat lost touch with that kind of music since then, but it was still a blow to read of Mr Gilmore's death. I am sure the people who knew him personally will miss him greatly, as will the rest of us who know him through his work.

See also:

Bob Gilmore in the Journal of Music

Bob Gilmore's own website

Trio Scordatura discography

New Favourites 2010

I have prepared a CD-R of my favourite new (to me) tunes of 2010. You can have a copy if you want; let me know and I will make one for you. Here is a list of the tunes with information on where they come from and links to where you can read more about the artist in question. Art Bears The Song of Investment Capital Overseas From a private compilation of music featuring Dagmar Krause called Some Questions About Dagmar Krause Veronica Falls Found Love in a Graveyard From the Indietracks Festival 2010 compilation Everybody Was In The French Resistance… Now Billie's Genes This riposte to Michael Jackson's 'Billie Jean' appears on the album Fixin' The Charts, Vol. 1 Lady Gaga Telephone From the album The Fame Monster The Blood Arm Suspicious Character From the album Lie Lover Lie Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes Home From the Rough Trade Shops compilation Counter Culture 2009, which I seem not to have reviewed online. The Duckworth Lewis Method Test Match Special From the untitled album by the Duckworth Lewis Method Electrelane To the East From the album No Shouts, No Calls Cate Le Bon Eyes So Bright From the brilliant album Me Oh My. I hope I have not buried this track here where people will not realise how great Cate Le Bon is. Cluster Heisse Lippen From the Soul Jazz compilation Deutsche Elektronische Musik: Experimental German Rock and Electronic Musik 1972-83 Fever Ray Seven From the untitled album by Fever Ray Cineplexxx Para Mi From the Indietracks Festival 2010 compilation Las Cuervas Chan Chan From the album De Mi Ciudad Te Traigo Omar Souleyman Hafer Gabrak Bidi (I Will Dig Your Grave with My Hands) From the album Jazeera Nights: Folk and Pop Sounds of Syria Group Doueh Ragsa Jaguar From the album Treeg Salaam Terrifying Tibetan Child and His Father Vocal with Erhu From the Sublime Frequencies album Streets of Lhasa Gerald Barry L'Agitation des Observateurs, le Tremblement des Voyeurs From the CD given away with the Irish Museum of Modern Art's Boulevard magazine. Trio Scordatura Invocation From the album Dubh The Streets of Lhasa From the Sublime Frequencies album Streets of Lhasa An inuit panda production

Trio Scordatura "Dubh"

The Scords are this classical three piece comprising Elisabeth Smalt on viola, Alfrun Schmid on voice, and Bob Gilmore on keyboards. They play music inspired by the ideas of Harry Partch*. One problem with this record, however, is that it comes with no sleevenotes or anything like that. So I know from a fascinating radio interview with Bob Gilmore on Nova and things he has said when playing live that the trios' music is inspired by the ideas of Harry Partch*, but I cannot not really tell you what those ideas are.

Anyway Dubh features a load of tracks by people like Judith Ring, Linda Buckley, Garrett Sholdice, Benedict Schlepper-Connolly, etc. And nothing composed by Bob Gilmore, which surprised me. I know that Gilmore is a musicologist and an expert on this kind of music, so you would think he would be able to knock something together to include on the record, but nothing appears. Maybe he is a hard-line non-composer, or maybe it is considered bad form to record your own compositions. I do not know. The actual musical pieces sound like they come from the dark ambient tradition rather than anything obviously "classical", using either electronics or funny viola sounds to create a disconcerting atmosphere. I recommend this highly to people who like that sort of thing.

Later: I wrote the preceding embarrassment of a non-review some time ago for Frank's APA. Let me try again to make one more attempt to get across some idea of what the music on this record sounds like. The tracks are mainly driven by the combination of Schmid's largely wordless vocals and Smalt's playing of the adapted viola. I think of the defining characteristic of this record as being slowness – we get pieces where notes are held for long periods, perhaps with very gradual change. This reminds me, of course, of the performance of James Tenney's In a Large Open Space that I saw a year or two back, with which this lot were involved. Some of the other tracks are more from the world of, eh, scratchy viola music, while some of the others use electronics as well as instrumental music. I am curious as to how the composer-performer relationship works with the pieces that use a lot of electronics, as my basic idea of how musical notation works does not comprehend how a composer would tell a performer what to do in this area. Does anyone have any ideas here?

Anyway, I hope that gives a better idea of what to expect with this record. I continue to recommend it highly, but I accept it is not for everyone. That said, I have started to imagine an alternate universe in which this kind of music suddenly becomes amazingly popular, with the Trio Scordatura playing sold-out concerts in the O2, contestants on X-Factor performing covers of tracks from this record and Paris Hilton bringing out an album inspired by the music of James Tenney. Would this be a better world than the one we have?

Should you wish to acquire the Trio Scordatura record, it can be purchased in the Winding Stair bookshop (ask for "the CD", as it is the only one they stock) or online from Ergodos.


*Or maybe it's James Tenney – it's so hard to remember things.

image source (Ergodos)

An inuit panda production

ERGODOS Day 8: Trio Scordatura

Again in the Unitarian Church. Trio Scordatura formed itself to explore the world of unconventional tunings. It comprises Bob Gilmore on keyboards together with Elisabeth Smalt on viola and Alfrun Schmid on voice. Gilmore was giving a talk earlier in the day on microtonality in music. I skipped that on the basis that it would probably just go over my silly non-PhD-in-music head, but I kind of regretted my decision when I heard Gilmore's introductions to the various places his trio played. I am still not sure I would have understood fully what he was saying, but he has such a pleasant speaking voice that it would all have been delightful. He also looked the part.

From the first piece (Conturador, by Flor Hartigan) you could tell this was going to be a bit special. As well as singing in a most unusual manner, Schmid was slowly twirling a pair of shaker devices that looked oddly like an opium poppy. The sound was as odd as the visual effect.

My limited musical vocabulary and lack of any real understanding of what alternate tunings and microtonality amount to in practice mean that I can only say so much about the Trio Scordatura concert. What I can say is that they were for me the find of the festival, playing the kind of music you get when the avant-garde gets it right. What they played sounded like nothing else I have ever heard, but it still sounded like music, albeit of a most unusual kind. One fascinating piece (composed by Horatiu Radulescu, a man sometimes lumped in with composers of "spectral music") featured Smalt playing an oddly tuned viola over a recording of others playing two grand pianos – grand pianos that had been tipped on their side and were being played by having threads rubbed against their inner strings. I would love to go to a concert where someone could do this for real.

I Remember was another piece, by some Alvin Lucifer fellow, saw Trio Scordatura joined by Garret Sholdice and Benedict Schlepper-Connolly, with the whole lot of them intoning wordlessly into jugs and then individually breaking off to say something they remembered. Sadly, no one remembered dancing in stilettos in the snow.

The other pieces were Enclosures by Peter Adriaansz (the trio playing to a programmed accompaniment of computer generated musical tones; spooky), Harmonium #1 by James Tenney (the trio playing over recordings of themselves playing, with the long sustained vocal notes and the ebb and flow of the viola being the most striking features), some Chinese poems set to music by Harry Partch (apparently very hard to sing; they certainly sounded strange enough, and interestingly this was the only vocal piece that featured lyrics) with accompaniment on prepared viola (a strange instrument of Mr Partch's devising), and …hush by Judith Ring (more prepared viola, playing over samples of prepared viola). The last piece was by Al Margolis, who also records and performs as If, Bwana. From Gilmore's description, this Margolis fellow seems to be a bit of a roffler, and this piece was here to present the fun side of progressive approaches to tuning and tonality. The trio played over a really bizarre musical backing.

My one big regret with this concert was that the trio did not have their debut album with them for sale. Apparently it was meant to be ready but certain unfortunate events prevented its appearance.

Panda Scordatura