CD ECM Records Stephan Micus: Bold As Light

2010

Stephan Micus - Raj Nplaim, Bass Zither, Chord Zither, Bavarian Zither, Nohkan, Sho, Voice, Kalimba, Shakuhachi, Sinding

“The idea of sitting down at a table and making a composition on paper is totally foreign to me. To come up with a piece of music, I have to make the sound myself, have the instruments in my hands.”

Stephan Micus (1953) has a special and intense relationship with the countless instruments he plays. Many of the instruments, a number of which come from Asia or Africa, represent age-old musical traditions, some of them dying out while others have congealed into the stuff of museum exhibits. But in Micus’ hands they come alive again. He experiments with new sound possibilities and often plays the instruments in ways other than those he was taught by local players during his distant travels. Improvising, he comes up with the most surprising combinations of instruments, whose melodic lines he plays separately into a multi-track recorder. The resulting polyphonic structures are staggeringly and mysteriously beautiful.

Micus’ three main sound protagonists in “Bold As Light” are the raj nplaim (a free-reed pipe made of bamboo) from Laos, the nohkan (a bamboo flute) from Japan, and the many male voices, which, of course, are all sung by Micus himself. He drew inspiration for the multipart vocals from the intriguing polyphonic singing of Georgia and Bulgaria, which since the early Middle Ages has shaped the style of everyday singing as well as the liturgy of the Orthodox Church. On the very last track, the interwoven vocals make way for the Japanese shō (mouth organ), thus joining different aural worlds in a total sound whose divergent timbres have surprisingly much in common.

Each instrument, of course, represents a culture, an aesthetic and (religious) world of thought. The knowledge of this not only adds an extra dimension to the music but also at times helps clarify the mutual relationships in sound.

Micus: “The raj nplaim is an instrument of the Hmong people, who live in Laos, Thailand, Vietnam and China. Though its sound suggests otherwise, it is a horizontally held bamboo pipe. A small metal-reed in the mouthpiece vibrates freely when you blow in it. The sound it makes is related to that of a mouth organ, harmonica or accordion. In fact, these instruments are in each other’s family: from the same region as the raj nplaim comes the khāēn, a mouth organ and prototype for the Chinese and Japanese mouth organs, the sheng and the shō, which in turn were forerunners of our accordion and bandoneon.”

“Among the Hmong, the raj nplaim is always played as a solo instrument,” Micus continues. “You can find examples of this on YouTube, a medium I seldom go to for information, but that in this case is very educational. Years after my trip to Laos, I had the idea to have multiple raj nplaims playing together. This gives a harmonium-like sound, but with one important difference: the raj nplaim can make glissandos, something the harmonium or accordion cannot.”

Besides the traditional instruments from Japan, Laos, Bavaria, Tanzania and The Gambia that Micus plays on “Bold As Light” he has also designed two completely new ones specially for this album: the chord zither and the bass zither which he combined with the nokan that is normally played either solo or with drums and voices.

In appearance, the Japanese nōkan somehow resembles the raj nplaim: it, too, is a horizontally held wind instrument. But there is a world of difference in the sound. Micus: “The nōkan can sound very high and loud. The sound also has something intangible and alarming about it. This has to do with the intonation, which has been intentionally upset by the instrument builders.”

Micus seeks explanations for that “intangible sound” in the original context of the nōkan: Japanese Noh theater. “The music of Noh is possibly the strangest music conceived by people on this planet,” he says. “It is very difficult to assimilate. If you don’t succeed, a Noh performance is simply torture, but if you do, it is an extraordinary experience because it frees you from all awareness of time.”

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What’s always been one of Micus’ most compelling qualities is that, despite studying music from various cultures, when it comes to his own, the borders are entirely dissolved; the instruments used in pursuit of a kind of music freed from – but nevertheless all-inclusive of – the various places from which it comes. And for those who find it all too easy to assign labels like “new age” to Micus, such reductionist categorizing only diminishes the deeper meaning of his music. This is music that feels as solitary as the process in which it’s made.
John Kelman, All About Jazz

Seldom have plucked and blown instruments been put to such magical use.
Michael Church, Independent on Sunday

This is music of impressive intelligence and substantial creativity, and it’s very enjoyable.
Rick Anderson, Baker & Taylor