Dac Crowell - "Harmundum"
(Suilven Recordings 2003; SUILVEN003)
Dac Crowell - "Harmundum"
(Suilven Recordings 2003; SUILVEN003)
Uploaded to Aural Innovations: January 2004
DAC Crowell is an artist who happens to work in the medium of electroacoustic music. He does experimental music; cerebral stuff that pushes the limits of what can be done with sound. DAC has been playing music since he was a small child, and has been seriously studying music at the college level and above for years (read SERIOUS musician).
Harmundum is a single song, about 56 minutes in length. It is meant to illustrate: "what might happen if milliseconds became minutes in the course of a work. The work is actually based on a rather pedestrian chord progression, one which many of us hear variations on every day of our lives without considering what might be within them. But instead of passing in seconds, this mundane series of chords is extended out... magnified, as if viewed through some sort of temporal microscope" (DAC Crowell, from the liner notes).
It’s a very subtle piece, and like DAC says, it builds very slowly. It is melodic. Without the liner notes, which explains the intent of the music, it would be easy to dismiss it as overlong and as ambient that pushes the limits of simplicity. Judged as a work of art, I can hear the gradual movement of the chords and see how the composer is stretching out time, exposing every nuance of the chord progression.
So, I’m torn. Is it music or is it art? Is it boring or deeply intellectual? You decide. Me (I’m just a lawnmower).
For more information you can visit the Suilven Recordings web site at: http://www.suilvenrecordings.com.
Email at: info@suilvenrecordings.com.
Contact via snail mail c/o Suilven Recordings; PO Box 28494; Edinburgh; EH4 1YY; Scotland.
Reviewed by Louis Hesselt-van-Dinter