The music of Los Angeles composer Christoffer Schunk often deals with the abstraction of personality and body as part of its sonic language. In live performances of the composer’s chamber works, the line separating musicians and actors gets blurred as performers warp their bodies and expressions, while simultaneously abusing their instruments. Schunk’s music also deals heavily with the power of personality through relentless stylistic shifts in sound. These sonic elements when coupled with the more performative elements of Schunk’s work creates music that is at once hilarious and devastating.
It’s tempting to think that this music wouldn’t translate well to recording, but Schunk has found a way to masterfully weave all of the corporeal elements of his work into marvelous musique concrète pieces on his debut full length release refractions of he(r). The works on this album manage to combine disparate sound sources, such as field recordings, layered extended vocal techniques/harmonies, acoustic instrumentation, pop melodies, and electronic psychoacoustic experimentation into a tour of various personalities and scenes from Schunk’s microcosmic vision of L.A. As a listener, we hear these realms viscerally due to radical shifts from Schunk’s grotesque vocal performances coupled with beating sine tones to more austere tonal passages and fragmented songs. Visually, the video from the lead off track on refractions… further highlights these juxtapositions in Schunk’s masterful collage by focusing on looped images of everything from cats, architecture, twitching legs, and lots of butts.
refractions of he(r) is out now on fwd: rcrds. You can watch the video for “part I” of the record above.
• Christoffer Schunkhttp://www.christofferschunk.com
• FWD: /rcrds/: http://www.fwdrcrds.com
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