Bastien, Pierre / Dr. Truna - Electric Totems CD
SKU
aMarxe 0524
“Construction of instruments, music, recording, and mixing design and photography by Dr Truna (Andres Blaco Ramos) and Pierre Bastien.”
“Surrealist games helped us compose this record: the collective collage in the album's two longest pieces, the cadavre exquis in the short central pieces, and throughout, automatic writing whose musical equivalent might well be free improvisation.
In the scorching heat of a Valencian August, we erected two electric totem poles. Dr Truna's took the form of the cosmic bull, a great roaring, improvising sculpture; mine, equipped with blowers, was made for the occasion and then dismantled. You can feel the ambient heat in the jungle of the opening and closing pieces, which we first improvised on our totems, on the globotarra and on a few other instruments of our own invention. In a second session, this time we selected only Dr Truna's cello and my trumpet to improvise again as a strict duo, in other words without listening to the sounds from the first session. Then we collaged the two recordings, leaving a great deal to chance.
The four central pieces were recorded later, this time on the principle of the cadavre exquis. Half were initiated by one of us, half by the other. Our responses to each other were instantaneous: we needed to react without taking the time to think, in order to keep the spontaneity of improvisation and play the surrealist game.”-Pierre Bastien