|
Tony Obr is one of many imaginative practitioners of Modular Synthesis, yet his work possesses an unmistakable individuality. Resounding with the glowing intensity of purpose, Obr's music unfolds with deliberateness in a slow dance of the mind. The album Escape Velocity (46'32") features three tracks under the name Tsone, plus the recording of Obr's epic live set for SoundQuest Fest 2021. The pleasure of this production comes from his ability to concentrate, and transcend a system of instruments. Creating a mighty sound out of high tension stillness Obr is at the service of the excitable circuits of the mind. Realizing a tight-nerved, tightly controlled performance requires a ferocious absorption. We hear it throughout the nearly 30 minute opener. Obr is trying to get somewhere, and he is taking us with him. Notes enter, tones resound, texture shifts, an atmosphere builds. This slowly winding, starkly beautiful concert piece progresses with intricate continuities. The spacious wash of the low-energy phase moves forward into a questing sequencer pattern. The air feels animated in pulsing machine precision. As musician and audience rise together we feel the power only great art can achieve. In a complex play upon the senses and the psyche, close timbres echo and reflect about the room. Grasping at ghostly chords electronic emanations circulate freely - engulfing the consciousness. The remaining shorter studio compositions on Escape Velocity each provide a pleasant variation of mood. Obr forsakes conventional narrative clarity, and plays with an ear for color and motion. One sonic figment triggers the next, as the relationship between known and unknowns projects into the future. Throughout Escape Velocity we find the musician telling his story. Obr's care in producing something so solidly constructed feels reassuring - proof of an organized world, and its higher truth.
Chuck van Zyl/STAR'S END - 29 April 2021
|
