What Ariel Kalma learned from spending hours preparing a piano, only to watch an “amazing piano player” smash the thing like orange juice would come out:
“Crazy people can do crazy things, and have a career out it.”
Maybe all of those lunatics out there who read Tiny Mix Tapes will find inspiration in the words of such a singular character. In a club like musique concrète, where layers of corrupted audio are left to smolder like sweet, French, homemade crude oil in modern, high-tech studios, being an “individual” doesn’t exactly set you apart. But Kalma is truly an individual among his peers, having shirked the amelodic tendencies of 20th century experimental music for a more unifying, zen approach to drone. His method and legacy are explored a documentary that accompanies An Evolutionary Music (Original Recordings: 1972 - 1979), which has been released on RVNG, which is presented in the meditative, phasing style of his compositions. Against a relaxing b&w palette, the artist describes his journey from a jazz horn player to avant-garde raga guru. His transformation into pioneer of tape phasing techniques and drone wizardry started when Kalma took a trip to India and was moved to tears by a group he heard playing there. Nowadays we have obscure .blogspots to provide us with endless raga improvisation, but in the 70s… and especially at a time when experimental musicians were focusing on playing their instruments the least they possibly could, Kalma was awestruck by the trance-like state the players put him in. It’s worth giving his early material a listen, as it is mesmerizing.
• Ariel Kalma: http://www.ariel-kalma.com
• RVNG Intl.: http://igetrvng.com
