Isostasie (review)

After releasing two self-produced albums on her label Nota Bene, Natasha Barrett now has a compact disc, Isostasie, out on the more widely available empreintes DIGITALes label. Her name should be familiar to most members of the community—Industrial Revelations (included on this CD) was awarded First Prize at Musica Nova (1998), and The Utility of Space was awarded a First Prize at the 28th Bourges International Electroacoustic Music and Sonic Art Competition (2001). This disc includes five works over ten minutes in length, one divided into short movements based on three poems. Scattered throughout are three vignettes of weather conditions.

It is difficult to write a review of Ms. Barrett's work without resorting to a thesaurus. Each piece on the CD is unique, but the strongest characteristics are universal. This composer has an uncanny feel for sound and her multi-layered compositions produce a lush soundscape that creates a densely involving experience for the listener. Hearing her work is like being in a miraculous space, intimately perceiving all sonic events at every level of consciousness. The textures constantly change, refining and redefining impressions. Jackson Pollock wrote: "my concern is with the rhythms of nature, the way the ocean moves, I work inside out, like nature." Ms. Barrett's pieces, with their disconnected nuggets of sound, myriad murmurs, ethereal wavering overtones, pointillistic chirps, and tectonic rumblings, somehow capture an essential rhythm that works from the inside out. This kaleidoscopic combination of noises is breathtaking; in addition, she plays as much with spatialization as with the sound itself. Hearing her music diffused in concert gives the music another dimension, yet this CD succeeds beautifully in stereo. Her careful attention to panning makes the sound vibrantly animated. I would highly suggest a subwoofer; her command of the deep is masterful. One can almost feel a very slow undulating subsonic pulse carrying you through the works.

Ms. Barrett's musical goal is "to capture and reflect the natural and physical world and address aspects of it that are being destroyed, disguised, or simply disappearing from everyday life." I have to wonder how much of my listening is colored by her evocative program notes. "Potential color lying dormant . . . poetic spatial implication . . . tomorrow the landscape will sing with machines." The connection to nature in her music is palpable, not only from her sound sources, but also in the way they are layered together to create a total environment. She often uses algorithmic simulations of natural phenomena to structure the events in her work, from mapping the spatialization of animal vocalizations in Viva la Selva! to capturing realtime meteorological forces in isplaced: Replaced. In the Rain is based on a "statistical simulation of rain falling on a two dimensional surface." These simulations and mappings do not sound artificial. On the contrary, they emboss a naturalistic imprint to otherworldly sounds. Her pieces are spun from the raw materials of earth and sky, interwoven with synthetic filaments.

Ms. Barrett's music has more pitch content than most of the electroacoustic repertoire; this facilitates the joining of organic and highly processed or synthesized sounds to form one powerful whole. Disparate sounds seem to belong together just because she wills it. She has a clear sense of micro-structure and orchestration; she makes even mundane computer music samples of rushing water and footsteps seem fresh by their setting. Ms. Barrett not only has a command of sound, she has an ear for silence. The end of Outside Snow Falls contains several seconds of stillness, letting the listener emerge from a state of reverie. She is a fearless user of lingering decays; Industrial Revelations contains a gorgeous fadeout, then a completely new section slowly emerges from the tiniest of noises. Her pieces don't seem to contain an overall structure; instead they consist of microclimates, small sections of tension...