People seem to think that for all the surplus and prosperity of the 21st century, time is a fair trade off. Hence, utilitarian inventions like the cellphone, which has turned walking, or riding peacefully aboard a train, into a productive activity. Space followed a similar injunction when we decided to industrialize two centuries ago. Now any so-called wasting of either commodity is considered a sin among those who seek to be "winners" in this world. Well, pardon me if this isn't exactly the most trenchant observation, but, what is it all for? Of all our needs and desires that seem to manifest in material goods, I believe what we really want, above all else, is our time and our space back.
Vienna-based trio Trapist share my feelings. On their second full-length, Ballroom, the band make the musical assertion that it's impossible to waste time or space, unless, perhaps, you overstuff it with useless filler. Though the group composes primarily through improvisation, both electronic and acoustic, every note on Ballroom feels spectacularly preordained, as if under the mystical spell of a world as it should be. Unfortunately, that world is all too foreign to even the most pedantically existential of us, and it may take a complete sacrifice of one's school- or job-mandated priorities to gain an appreciation for this record. But the reward is more than just musical; what Trapist have created here is more of philosophical dissertation as spoken through the ineffable poetry of music. And their thesis, if not entirely original, is brilliantly put.
Trapist are sure to draw comparisons to composers like Morton Feldman and latter-day improv acts like The Necks, whose work attempts to propel the inherently static by transcending the time constraints of conventional music. Pieces like Feldman's For Samuel Beckett fixate on subtly repeating constructs and protract them to Zen-noise-like levels. Ballroom doesn't experiment with time so much as make exquisite use of it as an artistic element. While some of Feldman's pieces would make Trapist seem like verifiable A.D.D. cases, what this band does with modern forms of music is selfsame in spirit as Feldman's exploration of classical composition.
But while the group have their loyalties, the fragments of acoustic guitar that scatter the opening section of "Time Axis Manipulation, Pt. 1" (no coincidence there) make it abundantly clear that Trapist are capable of radiant beauty. That avowal is supported by the gradual introduction of a gently undulating organic drone, which underscores the sparse instrumental setting and forms the melodic crux of the song. The result is something akin to Keith Fullerton Whitman with a backing band. Furthermore, the synth melody that emerges at the two-minute mark of "Time Axis Manipulation, Pt. 2"-- Ballroom's most confrontational moment to this point-- is blissfully sophisticated. The ensuing 90 seconds feel too sublime to endure the remaining five minutes, and they don't: The song gradually devolves into a crackling abyss of feedback reminiscent of Fennesz's Endless Summer or Sonic Youth's renascent noise saga, "Karen Revisited". On "Observations Took Place", the group's penchant for beauty returns, in infinitely more staggering form, as deliquescent synths build atop a looming bass-and-drums vamp, before meeting to form a dazzling sustained chord that carries the song out.
Equally essential to the makeup of Ballroom is the improvised playing of bassist Joe Williamson, guitarist Martin Stiewart, and drummer Martin Brandlmayr. Brandlmayr, in particular, has an exceptional ability of evincing complex soundscapes from his kit. With the augment of minimal electronics, his parts sound like multi-musician efforts, and provide a lush rhythmic bedding on which Williamson and Stiewart gladly trample. Similarly, Williamson's bass parts are mysterious and lulling, adding additional melodic depth to Trapist's formidable electronic palette. Like the best music, Ballroom is satisfying both intellectually and aesthetically, and while the record errs a bit more on the side of the former, its best moments are among the most gorgeous found in any genre.
If you aren't up for a potential overhaul of your philosophical worldview, chances are you'll consider Ballroom a waste of time. I admit, in struggling to consume it in time to meet a deadline weeks ago, the record was lost on me. Then I realized that I wasn't giving it the time or attention it demands. This album is best consumed on headphones, or at a reasonably loud volume, in order to take in every nuance. Missing a hushed analog swirl here is like missing the guitar riff that opens the body section of "Teenage Riot". Ballroom is a perfect record for a drear Saturday morning, with nothing on the agenda and no will to slate something in for later on. But then, Trapist aren't about any specific time; they embrace all hours, and dominate any one in which this disc spins.
