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Reviewed by:
  • Vertebra
  • Michael Boyd
Matthew Ostrowski: vertebra Compact disc, Pogus Productions P21016-2, 1999; available from Pogus Productions, 50 Ayr Road, Chester, New York 10918-2409, USA; fax (+1) 509-357-4319; Web www.pogus.com/.

Matthew Ostrowski is a composer, performer, and installation artist who primarily works in the electro-acoustic medium. His background is varied, ranging from composition to improvised live electronics to work with the noise band Krackhouse. The recording under consideration here, vertebra, was created while the composer studied at the Institute of Sonology at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague during the mid to late 1990s. Regarding this work, the composer writes: "This is a recording of a live performance: one member of a set of possible solutions. Vertebra is a computer program, an environmental construction, a scaffold, in which the activity of making sense and its suspensions are not merely illustrated, but actually taking place." Thus, the four tracks found on this compact disc (titled simply i, ii, iii, and iv) seem to represent instances or individual realizations of Mr. Ostrowski's larger work, the computer program. Much in the same way that an indeterminate composition can vary significantly in different performance contexts while retaining some essential characteristics, one finds interesting similarities and contrasts between the four tracks of vertebra.

All four tracks on this disc are of moderate length, between 10 and 14 minutes, and comprise primarily short- to medium-length threads of sound that are superimposed and juxtaposed. Within each track the sound segments, although diverse, are often interrelated, and in most cases likely stem from a somewhat limited pool of source sounds that are manipulated by Mr. Ostrowski's software. Considered collectively, the pieces of vertebra present sonic contrasts, though pairs of tracks, i/iv and ii/iii, share multiple characteristics. For example, the first and fourth are largely composed of percussive, granular, speech, and inharmonic sounds, whereas the second and third prominently oppose pitched instrumental and noisy timbres. Despite this distinction, all four parts of this disc are related through the manner in which the source sounds are manipulated and combined, and the highly active texture that results from these processes. Indeed one is almost overcome at times by the extreme level of activity in these works as new gestures are introduced rapidly, sometimes producing several layers of simultaneous activity.


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The first track begins with reiterated fragmentary speech, sustained inharmonic timbres, and a variety of percussive noises. Like the other pieces on this disc, these sounds are varied, both subtly and significantly, and often re-presented multiple times. The sonic focus of this track changes roughly every two minutes when new timbres and gestures are introduced or brought to the foreground. These sectional divisions are not always discrete, as many borders are blurred and feature significant overlap. This piece moves from the types of sounds described earlier to bell-like and buzzing timbres midway through the work's third minute, and in subsequent sections to bird sounds, synthesized and/or distorted instrumental pitches, and new speech fragments. The most striking sonic shift occurs midway through the eighth minute when a continuous but internally [End Page 68] mobile noisy texture is introduced and sustained for the remainder of the piece. In addition to the texture's internal mobility, diversity is also interjected through a variety of other sounds such as choir, synthesized pitches, and numerous reiterative noisy timbres that emerge over the sustained texture and die away.

vertebra's second track begins by juxtaposing modified instrumental string and piano sounds with noisy, reiterative atmospheric textures and percussive sounds. This basic opposition dominates the first half of this piece. At 4'31", after a brief fade, numerous noisy and inharmonic timbres are introduced that enter and disappear at a very high rate, significantly increasing the piece's density. At the beginning of the eighth minute a sustained, quasi-pitched timbre emerges that resembles the continuous texture found at the end of the disc's first track. Other elements emerge after this point that recall the previous track, including choral, bird, and bell-like sounds, that are paired with the types of noise-based gestures...

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