Anthea Caddy & Thembi Soddell - Iland

Anthea Caddy & Thembi Soddell - Iland (Cajid Media, 2006)

Anthea Caddy: cello
Thembi Soddell: electronics

Anthea Caddy is a cello player who has worked with Darrin Verhagen and François Tetaz; she exploits unconventional surroundings to bring out the most hidden colours of her instrument, which she's able to transform into creatures that growl, howl and moan while looking for a far corner of their short lifespan to affirm their unpredictably menacing attitude. Thembi Soddell, here featured on sampler, uses both field recordings and abstract sounds to develop splendid textural backgrounds and surprising outbursts of unusual timbres, only to suddenly disappear leaving room to a disquieting faraway urban hush. The thirty minutes of "Iland" are highly impressive, in that the fusion of these different kinds of electroacoustic presage cracks our fake tranquillity, dragging us into an uncertain kind of awareness that doesn't admit the presence of danger but at the same time almost expects it with unpronounceable pleasure. By alternating movement and stasis, Caddy and Soddell manage to express an otherwise undefinable sense of inner connection with something that resembles the various phases of a nightmare, but one that - one way or another - has an happy ending. (from Touching Extremes - Massimo Ricci - February 2007)

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