KAFFE MATTHEWS

cd eb+flo (Awcd0005-6)

2xCD, Annette Works

Warning: art ! Kaffe Matthews is more of a performing artist than a

musician, and the sounds she produces and which are documented on this

double-CD are only a means to the end of opening the minds of the audience

to a new sense of higher understanding of their senses, their experiences

and their surroundings. If you want to file this CD as a minimalist, static

ambient-CD, go ahead and do so, you’ll see for yourself, where you’ll end up

with.

Don’t be misjudged by the title of these CDs – there is only minimal ebb and

flow on these discs. Actually, most of the time this is music as static as

it can get. Kaffe Matthews uses a theremin and the surroundings and

implements available to her in live settings to produce a sound world that

is filled with high-frequency walls, noises, interferences, some harsh

rumblings and absolutely no beats or rhythms (unless you count the molecular

holes in a sine-wave which our senses – trained on finding differences to

work on – will interpret into some kind of variations). The titles “eb” and

“flo” mark the fifth and sixth CD in a series documenting her work in an

alphanumerical fashion (starting with “Ann”, “Bea”, “cécilie” and “dd”). She

has literally taken that world around the globe, playing in every kind of

venue imaginable and dedicating her life and artistic work to the

exploration of sounds.

The main outstanding feature about her minimalist soundscapes is an almost

organic grace that fills every space that her work is filled with. She

confronts her audience in with new experiences regarding their sense of

hearing, also extending her pressure to the tactile and sensory abilities of

the body of the listener, either by volume or by frequency. Yes, Kaffe

Matthews is more of a building artist than a musician, and the theoretical

framework – though not much or really put into words – is just as important

to her releases than the sounds themselves. She has constructed sonic

furniture, extended her work into the area of visual arts. She is also a

teacher for performance technology on one of the leading arts colleges in

the UK.

Of course, it is possible, to reduce “eb+flo” to the purely auditive side.

This will leave you with a record unlike every other record just the same.

Frequency-manipulation, crackling hysteria, the sounds of thoughts and

electrons, but within all the futuristic assemblage of consequent

sound-production, Matthews still finds some place for humour, if not love.

E.g. the track “For mama”, which features the chirping and chatting of

birds, and what sound is there done by nature that is more friendly and

peaceful than the sound of birds in front of the window? Or introducing

sounds like water flowing – which has been used in audio-psychology a lot

(and in new-age-music!) Matthews lets herself be driven by her surroundings

very much. Having used the arbitrariness and randomness of the weather for

sound-production, she has taken some more of the production into her own

hands. Still, a lot of influencing factors are still outside of her

responsibility and power – and shall remain so. The difference between

playing a gallery, a warehouse, a boat or a tea-room, for instance. The

fabric of the walls and the dynamics of the air, influencing the sound of

the theremin.

I’d like to add at the end of this review, that it is not easy listening to

this record. Some tracks are almost like a collection of sine-waves that

start and stop at random, giving that little digital ping every time, with

complete silence between them, which after some time becomes really

nerve-wrecking. I can imagine, people getting sick and tired during shows,

but also the opposite. Because at times she presents the most interesting

sounds I have ever heard. Hard stuff, at the most progressive frontier of

the avantgarde, this will make you listen to Aphex Twin as a relaxation.

www.annetteworks.com

11/2003

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