Dark Camber (164), by LEE FRASER

Dark Camber (164)

by LEE FRASER

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	1.	Thews and Limbs (I) 08:10
	2.	Thews and Limbs (II) 08:06
	3.	Thews and Limbs (III) 10:16
	4.	Narrows 09:31
	5.	Aerial Vapours 05:11
	6.	The Visions of Ezekiel 08:32

about

Dark Camber comprises four works composed between 2009 and 2012, using materials derived from a range of digital synthesis techniques (augmented with some electroacoustic treatments of concrète objects in a number of places to achieve more complex sonorities). While the influence of natural phenomena is often acknowledged in the behaviour and organisation of these materials, the focus of each work as a whole is on sound in the abstract — within an aesthetic/ formal context — where interest might be found in the play of colours, dynamic contours and/or overarching structural developments.

Lee Fraser is a composer whose work combines aspects of acousmatic theory with the compositional methods of computer music. He holds a PhD in electro-acoustic composition from the University of Manchester, which was supervised by David Berezan. He has also studied composition under Frank Denyer and Denis Smalley.

leefraser.co.uk

[Originally released in 2014; out of print]

Reviews

Debut albums don’t come much more impressive than this. A former student of Denis Smalley, Lee Fraser is a composer obviously concerned with the aesthetics of acousmatic music. That suggests certain connotations in terms of the relationship with sound sources, but Fraser’s approach is to keep points of origin at bay; in short, everything sounds electronic, either due to being synthetic or subject to forms of processing sufficient to remove traces of anything anecdotal. For Fraser, this allusive yet ultimately non-associative sonic environ- ment enables him to sculpt in such a way that the results sound amazingly intuitive and spontaneous, as though the sounds were happening without human involvement.

When reviewing this disc I singled out Thews and Limbs for special praise, and it’s to the three parts of this piece that I’ve returned most often. From an incandescent band of scorching noise, the work passes through undulating drones, metallic sparks, heavy drum-like poundings, the barest hint of some voices, and a glimmering Shepard tone-like pitch cluster accreting dense material all around it. And that’s just the first movement. To describe Fraser’s music is almost to do it a disservice — in any case, adjectives tend to fail when confronted by this level of imaginative fervour — yet it is precisely this kind of music that deserves going on about. At length. For one of the key things about it, which distinguishes it from a great deal of contemporary electronic music, is that beneath all of the synthesis and the sculpture it has real emotive depth; it isn’t dry, or clean, or remote—it’s present, upfront and personal; it happens, and we really feel it. Deeply. — Simon Cummings’ best albums of 2014

The simplest work heard here [is] Narrows (also the earliest work on the disc, composed in 2009): metallic pitches and a gentle granular texture placed side by side, playfully morphing into each other. Fraser some- times allows one element to dominate, as in the overt pitch focus of Aerial Vapours, where a dreamy opening leads to warm retro synth chords and upward-sliding bands of harmony. They dissipate like sparks, dissolve into pulsating bursts of froth and shimmer, but pitch is omnipresent. The Visions of Ezekiel emerges, aspirated, as from immense tubes or tunnels, leading to a series of episodes full of vivid juxtapositions of opposites; middle-grounded textures are overlaid with tart, squelch- ing notes that move with the pained grace of an arthritic acrobat. Texture takes over, a rippling surface moving through empty wind into complex pointillistic chatter. Drones wax and wane, and sometimes prevail, but the juxtapositions are constant and superbly measured. Dark Camber’s real showcase, though, is the three-part work Thews and Limbs, completed in 2012. One of the things that makes the work so outstanding is its willing- ness to let go of restraint, ramping things up in terms of both intensity and expressivity. The spontaneous nature of Fraser’s material is intoxicating, a hyper- complex narrative of ferocious twisting dissonance and glades of refreshing consonance, reinforced by confined spaces and juddering reverberation. Thews and Limbs occupies a genuinely stunning soundworld, in which the twin poles of noise and pitch become intertwined and effortlessly pass back and forth between each other such that timbral boundaries become meaningless. Acoustic sounds are momentarily evoked — among them voices, and an accordion — but it’s the way that overtly synthetic sounds can so demonstrably emote that’s most deeply impressive. Nowhere is this better encapsulated than in the eruption that takes place a minute into the final movement, the immense cry of a myriad imaginary sonic souls. A truly brilliant debut release, and easily one of the best albums of the year. — Simon Cummings at 5:4

Lee Fraser has studied with composer Denis Smalley, among others, and his work is clearly coming out of a similar acousmatic tradition. But he’s certainly not wedded to genre or heritage — his confident, striking Dark Camber debut infects electroacoustic textures with an unusually open melodic sensibility and an aggressive edge which brings to mind post-Mego extreme computer music. The album’s centrepiece is Thew And Limbs, a three part, 25 minute suite which abrades gliding tones with serrated slivers and locates connective threads between a series of asynchronous clusters of swarming sound fragments. Thereafter the relatively sedate Aerial Vapours generates mutating cycles of delicate pitch-fraying frequencies and modulated tonal waveforms. The Book Of Ezekiel is more volatile, working colour- ful flurries of sound particles into complex interstices and vortices. All the pieces are impressively astute, balancing a mature, architectural overview with unexpected structural detours and risks. — Nick Cain in The Wire

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released October 6, 2021

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