Moiré / Braille
Very little strikes as obvious on Nils Quak’s “Moiré / Braille” sequenced piece. The split name is due to the original format: a double cassette release on J&C Tapes. Like a phoneline with a connection missing, the music is uninterrupted, remarkably silent and yet possessed of an unearthly voice that transmogrifies the source materials.
The musics are spliced together so they form a segmented order, as if listening to one track across the two tapes. However, they flow seamlessly between drone modes, and the transition from ‘Linen’ to the magnificent ‘Orgon’ is pure bliss. ‘Orgon’ drifts with such an ultramundane existence about itself. The piece conjures up images of abandoned sideroad buildings and deserted Egyptian ruins.
Overall there is a detached sense of wonderment in mood, an opaque dark alleyway down a city esplanade. As in those circumstances, nothing is more than everything, and everything in nothing can become overwhelming. With ‘Moiré / Braille’, there is a pickpocket signification of the rudiments of musique concrète, unfettered closcrete (this and discrete music, mixed with classical) and incidental music, straying inches past the flag pole, weary of its origins. Quak is no quack, in short, demonstrating a demo-fi rawness in approach in sewing a release together. As well as displaying a likeness to the music of Eliane Radigue and Pauline Oliverios, Nils has a point to make that stretches beyond eyesight.