Harpist Hélène Breschand performs two challenging works by Eliane Radigue and Kasper T. Toeplitz with results intended for deep listening. The first sees Hélène perform Occam Ocean XVI for acoustic harp, drawing out a rich array of sonorities from a single pitch across its 27 minute duration. The first nine minutes are intensely meditative, with the effect of drawing our eyelids to half mast in the manner of best Eliane Radigue music, before that hypnagogic traction gives way to flurries of pitter-patter strings for the mid-section, only to return to the pharmaceutically effective microtonal drones in the final half.
In a smart contrast, Hélène’s take on Convergence, Saturation & Dissolution by Kaspar T. Toeplitz is performed on electric harp and live-electronics. Where the former piece is dense but minimal, this piece feels diffuse and vast, emerging from a minute of peripheral, near infrasonic rumbles and sferic timbres to a geologically slow-moving 26 minutes of elliptical oscillators to a coruscating, distorted peak and hellish noise finale.