What is music anyway? Something to listen to? Sounds that make you feel something? Shutting aside conventional structures, Concrete Sun offer up something else. These three musicians use found sounds, synths, and objects to conjure up aural landscapes, and provide spaces to explore for adventurous listeners.
The Mundane Uncanny is the new record from Concrete Sun. It consists of three long pieces. The trio is Evelyn Ficarra (found sounds, laptop), Heather Frasch (synthesizers, DIY kinetic objects), and Myra Melford (amplified objects and preparations inside the piano). The "tunes" are experiments in sound. Opener "where are you going" is noise, clangs, and empty space. The piece unfolds astride gamelan-like noises, and bits of static. The more playful "little bug on the water" uses synth noises to soundtrack a brief piece that's a little more direct than the others on the record. The epic length "skittering away" finds a parallel vibe with the opening track and leaves plenty of empty spaces for a listener to contemplate in, as the found sounds and faint noises creep in and around the edges of the listening experience.
Concrete Sun make challenging music that's easy to sink into. It's outside most of the usual genres, but it's experimental in an almost fun way. Think of The Mundane Uncanny as an experiment between three musicians where we just happen to be listening in, and smiling.
The Mundane Uncanny by Concrete Sun is available now. Details via Bandcamp below.
[Photo: Concrete Sun]