Ganesh Anandan and Hans Reichel are instrument inventors as well as musicians, and this CD consists largely of duets between the two, recorded during a meeting in Wuppertal, Germany. Anandan, born in Bangalore, Southern India, and long resident in Montreal, performs on two different instruments. One, the shruti stick, is a twelve-string zither with prepared strings, that is plucked, bowed, or struck, and frequently played with a slide for glissando effects. Anandan’s other instrument is a metallophone that can be tuned in various ways. Together, the two instruments provide Anandan with a vast array of sounds stretching from elusive whispers of strings and metal to authentic invocations of India’s Carnatic violin music and the gamelan orchestras of Bali. Reichel, a native of Wuppertal, plays daxophone, which he invented. A wooden blade fitted to a wooden box, mounted on a tripod and then bowed, it somehow produces an exotic sound palette that ranges from musical saw and quacking duck through flute and violin timbres to some speech-like (and eerie) evocations of the human voice. Together, these improvisers construct highly original sound worlds that suggest traditional Asian music and musique concrète, free improvisation and nature recordings.
