Static music, and/or music as a continuum, may be a somewhat experimental idea in the western world, but in other cultures, particularly African culture, music performance that stays more or less the same from beginning to the middle and on to the end, is par for the course. Avant-garde composers such as John Cage, Karlheinz Stockhausen and Steve Reich have produced music that has no particular linear development, and in the jazz world, Miles Davis tried out a fusion approach to static music with albums like “On the Corner” and “Get Up With It”. This leads us to a new Swiss trio known as, divr, with band members, Phillipp Eden on piano, Raphael Walser on bass and Jonas Ruther on drums. These guys are taking a very fresh approach to music making that sets them apart from the field. Their improvisations are not ‘static music’ per se, but are similar in that linear development takes a backseat to thoroughly exploring the present moment.
What divr does is produce musical ideas and then loop them and slowly alter them while carefully interacting with each other. They describe their music as based around ‘sonic interdependencies framed by the practice of mindfulness and deep listening’. Although there is some obvious repetition at work, the music slowly morphs and changes in unpredictable ways. There is some post-production at work on this album, so it may be hard to tell what is exactly being played and what might be looped, but it really doesn’t matter, even if there is some technology involved, everything sounds organically human.
The music itself has a lot of variety to it, "As of Now", sounds like a mid 90s trip-hop track, while "Upeksha" uses interlocking minimalist piano figures that recall Terry Riley. "Supreme Sweetness" gets into some dissonant and very active free jazz and "Tea High" has pounding piano chords on top of a drumnbass type busy rhythm. The last two tracks don’t quite measure up to the rest of the album as they close with a ballad of sorts and some cliché ambient bits, but the rest of the album is top notch. divr do not sound like anyone else, they represent a different approach to music making, an approach that will be lost on many listeners, but will be welcome to those who prefer deep listening and music that expands on the moment rather than anxiously always moving on.
