{"id":1807,"date":"2021-03-29T20:56:48","date_gmt":"2021-03-30T01:56:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fraufraulein.com\/billy\/?p=1807"},"modified":"2021-03-29T21:02:10","modified_gmt":"2021-03-30T02:02:10","slug":"organ-grinder-writers-roundtable-on-solum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fraufraulein.com\/billy\/2021\/03\/organ-grinder-writers-roundtable-on-solum\/","title":{"rendered":"Organ Grinder writer’s roundtable on Solum<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A delightfully lucid and poetic collection of reviews<\/a> of Solum<\/a><\/em> from Organ Grinder’s group of writers, “….it lays suspended in tense liminality between the stratosphere and the dark underground…”<\/em>

complete text below:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n
Fraufraulein, Solum<\/em> (Notice Recordings, 2021)<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

From Bandcamp: \u201cOn their first release since 2017, the duo of Anne Guthrie and Billy Gomberg craft a world inhabited by both the familiar and foreign. Guthrie\u2019s intimate vocals float like smoke over mysterious piano phrases; elements vacillating in and out of a sense of awareness. Bass and French horn, the duo\u2019s main instruments, are inquisitive and gentle, often present as a whisper, a quiet wind, an exhale. Sounds exist as distant vertical pillars, soon shifting into three-dimensional shapes, spinning autonomously. In this album there are meticulously placed auxiliary sounds, including textural field recordings and object play. They complicate and enrich the rigorously sparse instrumental notes, resulting in pieces that, in a vividly engaging way, are less domestic than they are the music of dream-like errands, or an inverted walk through a residential neighborhood.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Purchase Solum<\/em> on Bandcamp<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Maxie Younger<\/a><\/strong>: I\u2019ve been having a hard time looking at any kind of screen lately\u2014I\u2019m tired of waking up and scrolling on my phone for 20 minutes before I stumble out of bed, tired of turning on my laptop after breakfast to start the workday. I\u2019m bothered by the matte-<\/em>ness of it all, the bright surfaces that draw in light like localized black holes; when the tools power down, I don\u2019t gaze at myself, but at darkness. Solum <\/em>has been accompanying me through most of this disillusionment, and its wispy blend of field recordings, piano, esoteric vocal phrases, and deep stings of patchwork electronics is a perfect companion to unreality. In Solum<\/em>\u2019s universe, time stretches, lingers, snaps closed at the drop of a hat: tracks bump up against one another and fade outward like pond ripples, a waking dream in shades of grey, smoke-like, transient. It all stirs to life rather delicately, with Anne Guthrie\u2019s voice meandering over swirling, murky waters of soft piano and blown-out sample collages, before cracking its shell from the inside out in \u201cUntitled 3\u201d: the air begins to rattle with thunderous bass tones that pull menacingly at your coattails, daring you to look down. This speaks to the fundamental power of Solum<\/em>\u2014it lays suspended in tense liminality between the stratosphere and the dark underground: to listen is to hover inches from the abyss. It\u2019s a captivating package, and every time I experience it, I\u2019m gladdened, inspired, and pulled out of my funk a little bit. I\u2019m reminded that, any time I wish, I can close my eyes and look away from the world; and maybe, too, I can dream.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\\\\<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Audrey Lockie<\/a><\/strong>: \u201cIt started with rain \/ A simple mistake.\u201d These lines, delivered in a wry, deadpan quasi-melody by Anne Guthrie on the second untitled track off Solum<\/em>, point to the core ethos of her new album with Billy Gomberg as Fraufraulein. Every sound is at once passively incidental and monumental past its own appearance; both a coincidental combination of frequencies and a pack mule for the weight of context. The duo\u2019s m\u00e9lange of electroacoustic sounds, field recordings and art-song fragments negate the grounding effects any source materials might provide, relishing in the sonic illusions and misdirections inherent in a catch-all, never-stop-tinkering approach to music-making.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In many moments, as during the middle section of \u201cUntitled 2,\u201d this blend melts into a mangled construction like a haywire game of exquisite corpse. Atop burbling, rustling and scraping sounds, Guthrie intones a series of electronically treated, microtonal French horn passages that resemble the ghostly echoes of hunting calls. The conflict\u2014between the horn\u2019s languor and the fervor of the underlying clatter, between canned and organic sounds\u2014paints a lopsided portrait that Fraufraulein sketch again through the mix of dull bell tones and noise bursts on \u201cUntitled 3\u201d and through the indistinguishable clatter of \u201cUntitled 5.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At either end of Solum<\/em> lie whispered fragments of songs driven by piano and Guthrie\u2019s plaiting, haunting voice. The duet\u2019s firm tonalities offer the most jarring of the album\u2019s willful juxtapositions: \u201cUntitled 1\u201d opens with a torrent of volatility and distortion, a frame-filling blur antithetical to the sparsity of Guthrie\u2019s tune. When her voice returns in the closing track, the bed of sounds\u2014here, blunted metals and lingering pops of noise\u2014seems to bend and ebb underneath her intonations with natural grace. If the sonic sculptures still evade conventional shapes, at least now they possess a semblance of muscle memory, the comfort of familiarity in these still-strange forms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kevin McKinney<\/a><\/strong>: A few years ago, I lived in a basement apartment with a roommate who refrigerated mutton stew in lidless containers and played a weekly covers gig at an Irish pub; he therefore spent hours in our living room practicing Steve Miller Band and Van Morrison songs, singing ever more drunkenly without even sharing his Jameson. In that apartment, my bedroom was right next to the furnace, which roared and squeaked and clattered whenever it ran. Needless to say, I didn\u2019t own noise-cancelling headphones, so my listening habits changed drastically over the few months I lived there. No \u201cnormal\u201d song made sense\u2014any words or melodies were sure to be drowned out or interrupted\u2014so instead I was listening to harsh noise, Alan Licht\u2019s \u201cMinimal Top Ten \/ The Next Ten \/ Minimalism Top Ten III,<\/a>\u201d and the more extreme strains of free improvisation. Maybe you\u2019ll think this is nonsense, but I\u2019m not sure if I\u2019ve ever felt closer with the music I was listening to than I did then. The songs I loved felt like physical forms, like actual barriers I could hide behind when not much in my home felt under my control.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In their artists\u2019 statement, Anne Guthrie and Billy Gomberg mention the way the noise of a nearby restaurant\u2019s exhaust fan impacted Solum<\/em>\u2019s recording. Its noise forced the duo either to wait until nighttime to make music, or to record while it was running, reckoning in improvisation with the way it affects their space. Maybe it’s because this kind of sense memory has such personal significance for me, but I find one key to Solum<\/em> in the fifth untitled track, where what I assume must be the exhaust fan is most audible. Here, we hear quiet percussion, scraping, tapping, occasional bursts of electronic interference, Guthrie\u2019s breath through her horn\u2014all alongside the fan\u2019s constant thrum. To me, this track encapsulates Solum<\/em>\u2019s big question: are Fraufraulein playing with the noise or against it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Each time I listen to this album, I hear a different shade. I don\u2019t think there\u2019s a way to neatly describe how I feel about Solum<\/em> except to say that I really like it and that it leaves me feeling unsatisfied and that I think this lack of satisfaction is important to my liking it. There\u2019s a tension that draws me here again and again, a push and pull between comfort and frustration, discord and harmony\u2014between a recording of wind and the microphone\u2019s clipping.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\\\\<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jinhyung Kim<\/a><\/strong>: I haven\u2019t been sleeping too well these days. I usually take a \u201cfake\u201d nap right before (or after) dinner, where I just lie half-awake on my bed for an hour or so\u2014I\u2019m unable to fall asleep but too tired to do much else. In Solum<\/em>, I hear a soundtrack for the groggy haze I experience during that hour: Anne Guthrie\u2019s voice and horn playing drift ethereally above undulating waves of resonant white noise and restrained found-object splutter; whistling sines and creaking analog signals linger in the fog, drifting in and out of view, while Feldman-esque piano dissonance or Billy Gomberg\u2019s muted bass guitar occasionally anchors the music in a more palpable eeriness. The audio tends to clip, blurring the contours of articulations and producing muffled distortion similar to the sound a microphone picks up in blowing wind. It\u2019s all soothing in a way that isn\u2019t explicitly comforting; Solum<\/em> is a sonification of the barren yet teeming uncertainty through which I amble in my half-sleep, rather than a palliative for it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A delightfully lucid and poetic collection of reviews of Solum from Organ Grinder’s group of writers, “….it lays suspended in tense liminality between the stratosphere and the dark underground…”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[30,4,32,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1807","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fraufraulein","category-music","category-release","category-review"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1805,"url":"https:\/\/www.fraufraulein.com\/billy\/2021\/03\/fraufraulein-solum-cs-digi-notice-recordings-2021\/","url_meta":{"origin":1807,"position":0},"title":"fraufraulein, Solum, (CS\/digi, Notice Recordings 2021)","author":"billy gomberg","date":"March 29, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Our new tape Solum is now available from Notice Recordings. Solum by Fraufraulein On their first release since 2017, the duo of Anne Guthrie and Billy Gomberg craft a world inhabited by both the familiar and foreign. Guthrie's intimate vocals float like smoke over mysterious piano phrases; elements vacillating in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "fraufraulein"","block_context":{"text":"fraufraulein","link":"https:\/\/www.fraufraulein.com\/billy\/category\/fraufraulein\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.fraufraulein.com\/billy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/NTR065-Frau-scan-square.jpg?fit=1200%2C1191&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.fraufraulein.com\/billy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/NTR065-Frau-scan-square.jpg?fit=1200%2C1191&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.fraufraulein.com\/billy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/NTR065-Frau-scan-square.jpg?fit=1200%2C1191&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.fraufraulein.com\/billy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/NTR065-Frau-scan-square.jpg?fit=1200%2C1191&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.fraufraulein.com\/billy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/NTR065-Frau-scan-square.jpg?fit=1200%2C1191&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1818,"url":"https:\/\/www.fraufraulein.com\/billy\/2021\/04\/solum-in-dusted\/","url_meta":{"origin":1807,"position":1},"title":"Solum in Dusted","author":"billy gomberg","date":"April 25, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Bryon Hayes writes up Solum in the ever-reliable Dusted: Fraufraulein\u2019s music is immersive. Anne Guthrie and Billy Gomberg beam themselves, and us along with them, Quantum Leap-style directly into multiple environments in medias res. Through the clever employment of field recordings, they transport us to a hurricane-addled beach, performing a\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1843,"url":"https:\/\/www.fraufraulein.com\/billy\/2022\/02\/wilderness-and-luxury-cs-digital-dasa-tapes-2022\/","url_meta":{"origin":1807,"position":2},"title":"Wilderness And Luxury (CS\/digital, Dasa Tapes, 2022)","author":"billy gomberg","date":"February 22, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Wilderness and Luxury by Billy Gomberg Wilderness And Luxury is my first album of creative music since 2018\u2019s Beginners, and like last year\u2019s Fraufraulein tape Solum, feels to me like creative practice and language catching up with my life in California. In other ways, I hear materials that I\u2019ve been\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "music"","block_context":{"text":"music","link":"https:\/\/www.fraufraulein.com\/billy\/category\/music\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Wilderness And Luxury bandcamp album image","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.fraufraulein.com\/billy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/wildernessAndLuxury_bandcamp.jpeg?fit=700%2C700&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.fraufraulein.com\/billy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/wildernessAndLuxury_bandcamp.jpeg?fit=700%2C700&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.fraufraulein.com\/billy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/wildernessAndLuxury_bandcamp.jpeg?fit=700%2C700&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.fraufraulein.com\/billy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/wildernessAndLuxury_bandcamp.jpeg?fit=700%2C700&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1859,"url":"https:\/\/www.fraufraulein.com\/billy\/2022\/03\/mix-for-beyond-below\/","url_meta":{"origin":1807,"position":3},"title":"mix for Beyond\/Below","author":"billy gomberg","date":"March 5, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"every once in a while I get asked to contribute a mix, and I was definitely cheered to get a request for the Beyond\/Below series. lots of friends on this one. https:\/\/soundcloud.com\/beyondbelow\/48-billy-gomberg?utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing Beyond \/ Below 48 by Billy Gomberg. Received January 2022.Photo by BG \"We've lived in San Francisco for\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "music"","block_context":{"text":"music","link":"https:\/\/www.fraufraulein.com\/billy\/category\/music\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.fraufraulein.com\/billy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/275122753_4907127406008926_7924853505248717478_n.jpeg?fit=828%2C828&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.fraufraulein.com\/billy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/275122753_4907127406008926_7924853505248717478_n.jpeg?fit=828%2C828&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.fraufraulein.com\/billy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/275122753_4907127406008926_7924853505248717478_n.jpeg?fit=828%2C828&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.fraufraulein.com\/billy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/275122753_4907127406008926_7924853505248717478_n.jpeg?fit=828%2C828&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":37,"url":"https:\/\/www.fraufraulein.com\/billy\/2007\/10\/fraufraulein-country-at-the-river-of-friendship\/","url_meta":{"origin":1807,"position":4},"title":"Fraufraulein:Country At The River Of Friendship","author":"billy gomberg","date":"October 1, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"August 2007 \u2022 Test Tube netlabel http:\/\/www.monocromatica.com\/netlabel\/releases\/tube093.htm Four selected improvisations from myself and Anne Guthrie. There is definitely a focus on electronic\/amplified instruments and computer processing guiding our performance, creating a unified sound, the exception being the final, laptop-less track, with Anne unamplified on french horn and myself on electric\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "music"","block_context":{"text":"music","link":"https:\/\/www.fraufraulein.com\/billy\/category\/music\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"\/images\/albums\/tube093_cover_front.jpg","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1030,"url":"https:\/\/www.fraufraulein.com\/billy\/2013\/09\/video-for-secret-pyramid-a-descent\/","url_meta":{"origin":1807,"position":5},"title":"video for Secret Pyramid: “A Descent”","author":"billy gomberg","date":"September 21, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"watch in HD! from the 2013 album Movements of Night released by Students of Decay http:\/\/studentsofdecay.com\/post\/54557... Music by Amir Abbey Video by Billy Gomberg from Decoder Magazine: Secret Pyramid is the solo project of Vancouver\u2019s Amir Abbey, also one part of drone outfit Solars, and gourd bless Weird Canada for\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "music"","block_context":{"text":"music","link":"https:\/\/www.fraufraulein.com\/billy\/category\/music\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fraufraulein.com\/billy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1807","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fraufraulein.com\/billy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fraufraulein.com\/billy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fraufraulein.com\/billy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fraufraulein.com\/billy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1807"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.fraufraulein.com\/billy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1807\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1813,"href":"https:\/\/www.fraufraulein.com\/billy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1807\/revisions\/1813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fraufraulein.com\/billy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fraufraulein.com\/billy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fraufraulein.com\/billy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}