Rhythm as psychedelic

The spring edition of Sanatorium of Sound, although more economical, turned out to be surprisingly coherent, balancing rhythm and club electronics with abstract music that resonates perfectly in Sokolowsko.

I am obsessed with sound. I pay attention to the smallest detail; sometimes, a detail can irritate or catch my attention, and sometimes, it brings me out of balance. In the daily din, I listen – sometimes, I think the sound is there for the sake of it not being there. There’s too much going on in the soundscape. When I’m at a concert, the whole audio sphere around me influences its perception: incidental sounds, conversations, noises, rustlings – those accidental and those specially created.

It is on 24 March, in the afternoon hours. As I approach Dr Brehmer’s Sanatorium, an outstretched, sinuous drone floats out the window to the outside. At the time, I still don’t know if this is a coincidence or part of one of the installations of the spring edition of the 10th Sound Sanatorium. I found the answer on the first floor in the second part of Gerard Lebik’s sound installation, ‘Rhythmic Lines’, based on a painting by Waclaw Szpakowski.

The geometric work of the Constructivist artist is striking in its precision, so much so that it is hard to believe that such a thing was created in Poland in the 1920s. Festival participants point their fingers at a fragment of the original painting, tracing perpendicular lines. The composition resonates statically; the bass warmth reverberates in the Hall of the Sanatorium. A musical massage for the ear is a sound treatment, whereas a century ago, the lungs used to be treated. I could listen to this installation endlessly: the warm, drawn-out sound and the sustained looping stop time. This is facilitated by the brick interior of the neo-Gothic building.

I am at the tenth edition of the festival. It is unusual because it is spring—the event is held every year in August. It is also uncommon because it indicates a sonic interest in rhythm. Due to the weather, the concerts are in the sanatorium building and the Kino Zdrowie in March or early spring. The first electronic day is very intense, standing for rhythm, beat, and club music, albeit with surprises.

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The evening opens with Mariam Gviniashvili playing a material called RUINS, which is an audiovisual concert. A very dense, drone-like composition will roll through a mass of sound through Kino. The suspended, gripping weight resonates strongly, broken by the visuals, which tie in with the musical layer. Still, being literal and too long in duration trivializes it.

Rafał Ryterski plays a set that fits the cinema space in the slightest: The post-club pulsation momentarily encourages dancing. The room explodes with sounds; the artist blurs genres and plays with structure and narrative, but all the time, leading a dense rhythmic cascade. This is edgy but lively music, far from static club music. It juggles club rhythm, transitions, and fluidity. After him, the pace slows down, and Niilas plays – his subtly unfolding passages are based on keyboard parts, samples, and dreamlike overlapping layers of sound. He sometimes takes on a hint of a disco-rock rhythm, creating a warm-sounding, impressionistic tale. The evening closes with the most performative concert – Ziúr. Dense, intense, and songful, with diva-like singing and heavy-metal riffs, looking at the conglomerate of contemporary culture, yet not technically over-the-top but lyrical in its way, full of emotion. All of these performances resonate well in the Hall, but a change of order would have changed them better. After the ecstatic Ryterski, it is difficult to maintain the energy level and life; he should be the one to close the evening.

The second day features concerts in the sanatorium building. Krzysztof Cybulski plays a self-constructed post-digital saxophone, which is different in timbre from the original metal instrument. The wooden instrument reaches registers that are impossible for traditional devices – a bass clarinet must be three meters long to match it. This is why Cybulski shows a romantic version of the instrument. He weaves textures and resonances, at one point reaching for a looper, with which he models the sound of the saxophone live and his voice. Resembling a small turntable, the equipment modulates the recorded parts. Individual loop elements are to be selected for modification, which sounds highly fascinating. However, at one point, it took effort to understand that this was more of a case study of the instrument than an attempt to make a planned composition, which would add an undoubted flavor.

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One of the highlights of the spring edition of the festival is a concert by VRANG – the duo Nora Klungresæter and Susanne Xin for piano, electronics, flute, and vocals. They begin with subtle piano and flute playing before moving on to more soaring parts. Later, the two acoustic instruments gain an ally through a warm beat, but only briefly. Xin plays choppy piano parts and Klungresæter electronic sound patches, complemented by vocalizations and field recordings. The most exciting moment is when Xin almost jumps inside the piano to prepare the instrument. She cuts across the percussion cymbal with a split hair, counterpointing her friend with a metallic sound. A moment later, they both grab the bristle to prepare the instrument’s strings with it. The result is the furthest possible departure from punctuated, delicate pianism in favor of heavy, drone-like textures played on strings reminiscent of double bass strings: a brilliantly constructed narrative, the concerto’s constituent parts, and their overall formal intertwining.

The listening lesson is provided by Giuseppe Ielasi, who plays less and creates an outstanding sound environment. Sitting in the Kino Zdrowie right in front of the audience, out of the stage, playing on a sampler, he meticulously controls an intricately constructed sound mosaic. Drawing on dozens of samples, he improvises, creating a mysterious soundtrack with lightly sketched pulsations. Still, to a greater extent, the rhythm manifests itself in time intervals with which the Italian releases successive samples. The intriguing aura he manages to create is due, on the one hand, to the focus, the sounds played relatively quietly, which requires quite a lot of concentration, but also to their attractive sonic and acoustic textures. The music sounds extraordinarily natural, and all the samples, originating in acoustic or electric objects and instruments, are condensed into excerpts and microstructures. Judith Hamann, who performs after him, nuances the stages of her concert – she starts with punctuated bow strokes, goes through drawn-out, drone-like playing, and ends with rhythmic strumming of the instrument’s strings. There is a palpable pulsation to this, slightly suspended, convincing me as a set of interventions for cello and voice rather than a narratively neat whole.

Outstanding applause for the lighting designer, who designed the lighting differently for each concert and the light effects. At Ryterski’s, there were striking visual layers; at Nillas’, there were interlacing ‘laser’ streaks spreading across the Hall. Ielasi played almost in silence with pinpoint, warm lights gently painting the space. This dramatically changes the perception of the music.

Sokolowsko in March is shorter, with most people leaving on Sunday, so the closing concert takes place at 1 p.m. How else does one listen to this music, moments after breakfast, from the bright hills and German tenements entering the dark cinema? The Sanatorium of Sound Ensemble (i.e., Lebik/Ielasi/Haman) plays “Treatise” by Cornelius Cardew. This is dense music, light in form but heavy in sound, straining sparingly, suspended. Hamann plays heavy suspended cello parts into which Ielasi sparingly weaves punctuated, expressive sharp samples, creating micro-interventions, as it were, on the instrument’s monotonous lines. Lebik builds sinuous waves of imperceptible buildup, subverting Hamann’s extended but subtly strained linear strands. The whole unfolds unhurriedly, as it were, lingering in stillness, building up a growing sonic form, somewhat reminiscent of the sound installation that takes over the entire space in the Health Cinema hall. It is not adequate, attacking; it gradually absorbs the soundosphere in the middle of the day, offering a fascinating session in suspension, a contemplation of micro-sounds, an intricately woven improvisation, which, rather than adopting a linear, gradual dramaturgy, instead builds a dense network of interactions between instruments.

We’re coming into the light out of the cinema hall, knocked out of rhythm. Although with fewer concerts, the spring edition of the festival proves surprisingly coherent, offering a unique experience. The separation between the rhythmic and the more abstract provides an outstanding balance, as does the edition itself, which in spring breaks out of the festival rhythm that focuses on the summer months. I’m not sure if the rhythm has therapeutic qualities this time, but for me, it’s interestingly psychedelic.

The summer edition of the Sanatorium of Sound festival will take place from 2 to 4 August 2024. Details and programme: sanatoriumofsound.com

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