The art of the collaboration must be a tricky process indeed; two performers coming together for the mutual understanding of combining forces (musically speaking) to create something hopefully greater than the sum of its parts. Putting aside differences and delicately bringing their ideas to the table without dismissing the other, collaboration is a tight-rope that rarely brings the results intended. Not being completely familiar with either artist's individual recorded output, the collaboration between the two electronic musicians, Organum and Z'ev provide me with an opportunity to judge the material as a single piece on its own merits; without comparing it with what has been produced in the past.
Tinnitus Vu begins with electronic textures that sound akin to ice crystals jangling into one another. With a minimalist drone in the background, a sparse piano chord, a la AMM alum John Tilbury, reveals the beauty hidden within the track -- and for the EP for that matter. The piano chord finds itself at the beginning and the end of the second track, sandwiching a textured piece reminiscent of a field recording, a kind of field recording of pieces of wood being bundled together. A stray tambourine shake breaks up the monotony before the piano chord closes the piece.
Track four finds the EP coming full circle. It continues the icy textures that opened up the initial track, along with the beautiful piano chord once again. While this release has many memorable themes that work in and out of the EP, it begs to ask whether this would have benefited from being edited together into one piece rather than four smaller arrangements (nearly all of the four tracks clock in at the four minute mark). Collaborations and improvisations aside, Tinnitus Vu is nothing earth shattering, but rather, an interesting example of minimalism and repetitive themes that demand a full-length release to give its ideas room to stretch and grow.
1. Track 1
2. Track 2
3. Track 3
4. Track 4
More about: Organum
