I am giving Phill Niblock's G2, 44+/ x2 CD what could well be my one and only 'proper' listen. I've heard the record a half-dozen times walking around town and riding the bus, and I've given it a few more spins while reading in my living room. But for none of these did I follow Niblock's own instructions in the liner notes: "...you should play the music VERY loud. If the neighbors don't complain before the piece ends, it's probably not loud enough. The ones that live a mile down the road, that is." I live in an apartment populated by respectable people with real jobs who keep regular hours. One of them could be pounding on my door at any moment. So I'd better get to it, then.
Phill Niblock is a distinguished composer who also happens to have released very few records. Like LaMonte Young (with whom he shares many ideas about drone, pitch and tuning) and Maryanne Amacher, Niblock has avoided releasing his pieces, in part because he hates the idea of giving up control of how they're presented. The notion that someone might give one of his pieces a casual spin on a cheap stereo has been too painful for Niblock to bear, and so, he has presented his work in installation settings, where he can make them as loud and as long as he likes.
Niblock's aversion to recording is slowly giving way. This recording contains two versions of a 1996 piece called "Guitar Too, for Four." On the first, Niblock recorded and edited guitar parts laid down by Rafael Toral, Robert Poss, Susan Stenger and David First, and then let Toral improvise on top of this construction. On the second, Niblock adds further improvisations from Kevin Drumm, Lee Ranaldo, Thurston Moore, Robert Poss and Alan Licht to the original mix.
Yet, despite the presence of all the high-profile guitarists and the word 'improvising,' both of the "Guitar Too, for Four" pieces are total Niblock. All guitars were played with an e-bow, a device used to magnetically stimulate guitar strings, and hence, "Guitar Too, for Four" is pure drone from start to finish. There's no telling who plays what, and a grand total of three notes are heard, anyway. So, then, what's the point of layering five guitars on top of each other of you're only going to play three notes, you ask? Well, Niblock's music is all about small, subtle differences, and the interference caused by tiny pitch fluctuations. Each guitarist is continually making slight modifications to his part using the guitar's tremolo arm, and inside these details lies the heart of the piece.
The varying pitches at which the guitars hum initially seem stable and unchanging, but as you listen closer, you notice the slow, gradual shifts happening continuously. The midtone almost imperceptibly slides below the high note, or two competing versions of the bass shake out of tune, giving a beating rhythm of harmonic fluctuation. What's key is that each particular amalgamation of tones has its own subtly different emotional quality. At one moment the piece seems as soothing as the fluffiest Windy & Carl piece (though there's no distortion here, make no mistake); the next it takes on a menacing cast, as the pitch differences start to flutter.
"Guitar Too, for Four" closer than anything I've heard to capturing the sound in LaMonte Young's Dream House. This piece is sound as sculpture, a fixed object rising from the ground that's infinitely variable based on the point of view of the listener. But while Young's installation literally varied markedly based on the listener's position in the room, Niblock's piece involves movement of another sort: one based on where the listener chooses to focus his attention. I'm not going to lie to you-- this is the kind of record where you have to put in some work and have even more patience, but the payoff is there.
And now, after just over an hour inside G2, 44+/ x2, the second version of "Guitar Too, for Four" fades out-- and not a peep from the neighbors. Perhaps next time I'll give the volume knob another 45-degree turn clockwise.
