A Certain Slant Of Light by Thanos Chrysakis and Chris Cundy (review)

In A Certain Slant of Light (2020), Thanos Chrysakis and Chris Cundy successfully explore a distinctive sonic territory that stems from the duo's strategy of mixing digital and analog electronic instrumental sources. This electroacoustic duo performs on a variety of instruments and sources. Chrysakis performs on laptop, synthesizers, a vintage reel-to-reel tape deck, and a Watkins Copicat. Cundy performs on bass clarinet, megaphone, voice changer, zither, and amplified objects. This distinctive instrumentation has great potential for experimenting with various timbral combinations, and can exploit a full sonic range in one fell swoop. This sonic palette provides performance possibilities that have the potential for continually developing the musical landscape.

Chrysakis and Cundy do not seem to follow any rigid format when setting up their performances beforehand. Instead, they meet each other in the moment, intuitively matching one another, and encouraging musical development. Both players are ready to work together in search of a composite sonic identity. They carefully listen to one another when introducing their materials during performance. This also allows for musical adjustments that are made on the spot.

A Certain Slant of Light, a compact disc released on the Aural Terrains label, was recorded in a studio in Cheltenham, England. Throughout the work's five-part form the listener hears how Chrysakis and Cundy build an electroacoustic picture, communicating a musical narrative within this composite structure. The introductory dialogue between the players might be heard as a succession of noisy utterances, but Chrysakis and Cundy work toward producing a distinctive counterpoint between the delicate, more carefully placed layers, and more weighty sonic events.

It is interesting to note the role of the bass clarinet as it relates to the group's aesthetic as well. First, neither player uses live sampling in his setup. In Cundy's performance, he makes his own adjustments, demonstrating either leading or passive musical behaviors. In Part I, he seems to primarily match other electronic timbres, forging his performance based on dense, or metallic soundstreams. Part I also seems to rotate through a series of timbral combinations, exploring subtle inflections of noise-infused elements. The duo presents an intuitive approach to improvising, demonstrating spontaneous, individual exploration. Chrysakis performs on a laptop using the Max programming environment, two custom built synthesizers, including a Korg MS-20, and the Watkins Copicat tape machine mentioned earlier. Cundy uses a voice changer, a megaphone, and other effects with his bass clarinet, as well as a collection of stones and glassware used to play a zither.

The duo's performance method suggests an environmental approach, wherein their setup spontaneously interacts to a given environment. Cundy mentions this regarding the voice changer: "The voice changer is a toy originally marketed as 'Mr. Alien,' but adapted for a studio setting with an output and an extended microphone for choosing close or wide placements. Its basic function is as a pitch shifter and distortion pickup and in this situation it was used on the whole room. It's good at picking up unintended and incidental noises that happen as we move around and operate."

It is this approach to timbre that expands the players' musical potential and sonic range—picking up the unintended. Regarding the application of electronic synthesis, it sounds as if the players had coordinated their performance with each other, never intending to overpower the other, or create any imbalance. An important aspect of their way of working is a willingness to learn how to produce music together. In situations such as these, the players embrace uncertainty.

Upon listening to Part II one notices an ambient drone in the background. It can be viewed as a starting point for developing smaller, fluid fragments, whose sequences emerge at varying distances relative to a lightly pulsing convolution layer. The approach heard here can also be described as a type of electronic ornamentation, pitted against a focused, noise layer. Initially, I asked Chrysakis whether noise played a central role here...