Austrian Elisabeth Harnik combines the extremes of a genre-defying pianism that oscillates from scattered remnants of phrases to full-fledged eruptions and vice versa, the whole revealing a wealth of extemporaneous ingeniousness bathing in extended techniques. Slovenian Zlatko Kaučič draws inspiration from observing people immersed in everyday life, from chaos, from musicians he has loved in the past and from those — so many — with whom he plays to this day. An extremely varied percussive palette nourishes the seemingly inexhaustible imagination of an "absolutely free" performer as he is.
In this concert from 2022, recorded at the Kulturhalle Eggersdorf (Graz, Austria), the duo implements a dialogue characterized by a responsive listening to what the partner has to say, starting with an analysis of the relationship between silence and sheer vibration of the sound object. An increasingly prescient insight is thus developed, in which the semblance of a disordered crescendo, or an unexpected rhythmic disintegration, appear defined by a logical framework. The rarefied air of a relative calmness can get saturated by harsh resonances, violent strokes, obsessive repetition and convulsive discharges. However, the intelligibility of the interaction remains unaffected, allowing the perception of simultaneous investigations, constantly mutating figurations and, why not, atypical grooves.
Harnik and Kaučič seek common timbral terrain, where the original implications of the instrumental gamut can be entirely subverted. They elicit an unorthodox acoustic microcosm, a peculiar sense of humor fluidly alternating with less fathomable impressions. Every so often, in turn, one instrumentalist seems to wait for a nod from the other to instantly develop a concept appropriate to the further continuation of the conversation. The latter, it must be said, frequently occurs at remarkable speed, and without loss of lucidity. At such junctures it may happen that roles are somewhat switched in the generation of abrasive matters useful for improvisation. In any case, the pair's turbulent narratives remain motivated and regulated by a joint creative fervency.
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