The creative visions of Baltimore neighbors Twig Harper and Daniel Higgs are so cosmically aligned, collaboration was practically inevitable. Higgs' work centers on dramatic speech, a kind of transcendental sermon-poetry that repeats words and phrases until they break free from literal meanings. Harper does the same with sound, both solo and with Nautical Almanac, his longtime duo with Carly Ptak. Mining busted tape loops, non-linear circuitry, and other homemade sonic tools, Harper juggles noises so that they, as he puts it, "[interact] with your consciousness" to produce magical effects.
On their first record together, Clairaudience Fellowship, it sounds like Harper and Higgs have interacted for a long time, maybe forever. Higgs' recent sprawling 2xCD Say God had a timeless feeling too. But its sonic background wasn't always rich enough to match his verbal virtuosity. Rather than rising to meet his commanding voice, the music sometimes retreated from it. By contrast, Harper's sounds stand up to Higgs' proclamations, bouncing off of them, wrapping around them, at times boldly battling them.
The closest reference point to Clairaudience Fellowship is David Tudor and John Cage's Indeterminacy. On that 1959 album, Cage told stories while Tudor created abstract noise in a separate room, finding magic in the random intersections between words and sound. Though just as open to sonic serendipity, Harper and Higgs are more locked-in than Tudor and Cage. Clunking half-beats and static squiggles ride the rhythm of three-word phrases. "You are the life span of time forms and the life form of time spans, yes the time form of life space," Higgs intones as Harper's metallic clangs leapfrog in response. Those familiar with Harper's music might be surprised at the lack of anything harsh or confrontational. But his sounds are so busy that they're impossible to ignore. Even on his sparest tracks, thin wisps of noise eventually coat Higgs' repetitive descriptions.
In fact, you could say that this is more Harper's record than Higgs'-- his sounds are so consistently interesting they can make Higgs' more formal style feel monotone. That argument is bolstered by the album's final track, a 12-minute noise jam that is almost Higgs-less. But listen closely and you can hear Higgs' cadences filling the sound like a ghost animating a bedsheet. That's the strongest impression left by Clairaudience Fellowship-- you may be able to pick out when Higgs is speaking and Harper is blasting, but it's impossible to separate their individual ideas from the synchronicity of their musical mind-meld.
