Pathways of the Mind
Exploring Sympathetic Resonance - first series
This live solo percussion concert performed by Phil Treloar and recorded in Kanazawa, Japan, August 9, 2005, is the first public presentation of the Pathways project. It explores, through the medium of improvised music, resonant sound-worlds comprising various instrumental construals of wood, metal, and skin. Each of the seven set-ups employed here were designed specifically for this concert presentation and developed as an aspect intrinsic to performance preparation. This preparatory process took place over the course of two to three months with its primary focus being devoted to timbral concerns. In this respect an identifiable composition-like element (the timbral) has been mapped onto an otherwise improvised medium of spontaneous sound-making. Program order was not predetermined.
In production editing consisted in cutting one piece from the recorded performance and shortening the time between items. One change in item order has been made. The CD was published in 2006.
PROGRAM:
Resonance 1 (marimba and metal) Samadhi 06: 32
Resonance 2 (one tom-tom) Mountain Streams Sound 06: 49
Resonance 3 (marimba) The Turning Wheel of Life 08: 19
Resonance 4 (metal) Journey to Tushita 12: 28
Resonance 5 (marimba) Offering in Faith 11: 50
for Chuck Yates - my teacher, my friend
Resonance 6 (cymbals) Moon Dancing on Water 13: 05
Resonance 7 ( three drums) Clouds Resound with Joyous Thunder 07 07
Resonance 8 - Encore (marimba) Dancing with Chris 04 42
TOTAL TIME 70: 58
REVIEW:
Until moving to Japan some 15 years ago, Phil Treloar was Australia's key creative percussionist. His disciplined study of sonic, improvisational and compositional concepts and possibilities continues, and this, his first-ever CD, captures the magic to flow from all that work. It is a live recording of a
solo percussion recital, subtitled Exploring Sympathetic Resonance.
The eight pieces are improvisations within predetermined and very different sound worlds, each providing startling evidence of the beauty of Treloar's conception and execution. No other percussionist can extract more music from a single drum (as is the case on Resonance 2 ), yet make conventional concepts of technique seem brutally primitive. The marimba has been Treloar's main instrument since moving to Japan, and his touch upon it is so sophisticated that each note is a shower of sonic possibilities by itself, from liquid pools with no attack to hard-edged spikes of sound. Close your eyes and be entranced. This is improvisation at its most pure.
(John Shand, Sydney Morning Herald, Saturday, June 10, 2006)