On (Sylvain Chauveau) - Something That Has Form & Something That Does Not (Reworked By Fennesz)

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5...according to our Ant on Thu 22 Jul, 2010.

This is the third album from the duo of Sylvain Chauveau and Steven Hessunder. The source material was created through improvisations and then handed over to main man Christian Fennesz and then completely re-worked. Yes Fennesz! Although there is no mention of him on the cover, so it's not immediately obvious. The album opens with 'The Inconsolable Polymath' which is an exercise in sustained frequencies and tension. Not unlike some BJ Nilsen stuff really. Things soon pick up pace with 'Blank Space' a dark and mysterious journey into the void with sound reverberating around an abyss, all with Fennesz's idiosyncratic styling: drone, hum and crackly textures. 'Something That Has Form And Something That Does Not' has live drums and and keys and is respectfully treated with Fennesz jut adding a little of his magic to the mix. 'A Tardy Admission That The Crisis Is Serious' is the most intense track with throbbing low end rumbling and splashy cymbal flourishes. The album closes with ' The Sound of White' which is very pretty with prepared guitar sounds, crackle and some intoxicating sparkles. This could pretty much be new Fennesz record. Most enjoyable and recommended.

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* Latest collaboration between Steven Hess & Sylvain Chauveau under the ‘On’ moniker

* The album was completely re-worked, re-arranged and re-composed by Fennesz.

* Vinyl limited to just 500 copies.

* ‘Something That Has Form And Something That Does Not’ is the third album from Sylvain Chauveau and Steven Hess
under their On moniker, and continues their excavation of abstracted experimental sounds. As with the previous records,
improvisations were recorded in a studio in Chicago and then handed to a guest musician to rework in whichever way
they saw fit.

* This time around the guest musician is none other than experimental pioneer Christian Fennesz. Christian’s
association with the band goes way back – he performed with them in 2004 as a trio so it seemed almost inevitable that
a collaboration would emerge at some point, but this treatment truly takes the notion of collaboration to another place
entirely.

* Unlike ‘Your Naked Ghost Comes Back At Night’ (which was handled by dark-ambient master Deathprod), Fennesz
has treated the source sounds with a distinct lightness, allowing them to creak and breathe. Occasionally you can hear
the room itself ticking in the foreground – hands on drumsticks and feet on pedals. The sounds become the backbone of
the intense, slow-building dronescapes that Fennesz pulls from the original recordings. We are treated to piercing noise
as the album opens with a choir of feedback, but the cacophony gradually disperses to allow pulsing harmony and
Steven Hess’s propulsive, metronomic drumming.

* When we close on the blissful near 20-minute ‘The Sound Of White’, echoes of Fennesz’s best work drifts through the
crackle and pulse of Chauveau’s prepared guitar and Hess’ distant percussion. These hypnotic patterns slowly rise and
fall, giving the listener time to truly hear each subtle shift. This is not an exercise in easy listening – rather here is
an album that demands close attention, and one where the beauty truly is in the details.

TRACKLIST:

1. The Inconsolable Polymath 2. Blank Space 3. Something That Has Form And Something That Does Not 4. A Tardy Admission That The Crisis Is Serious 5. The Sound Of White

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