Razen & Dick van der Harst – Stained Glass Starling

Harmonium, basse à pied, monochord, chalumeau, erhu, kacapi, tromba marina, serpent, hurdy-gurdy, recorders. Few of them familiar from rock or jazz. The names alone create estrangement. An estrangement that the Belgian duo Razen – Brecht Ameel and Kim Delcour – and the Dutch composer Dick van der Harst set out over the course of 37 minutes. For Stained Glass Starling is not a meeting of »Eastern« and »Western« sounds. It is a model of equality in listening. The instruments stand together without soloistic hierarchy. They create music that emerges from layering rather than leadership.

This becomes clear in the opening title track. 17:40, a coexistence of unequal tones: dull drones, fluting lines, bright ringing. They lie so close that they almost touch: a feeling-out without contact. Music that renounces electronic extension and seeks its transcendence solely in intonation, overtones, breath, friction and the physical presence of historical instruments.

The friction is greatest on »Starling Gut«. The playing becomes more expressive, the instruments blare, the grain grows coarser. Without a single jazz instrument, the music lands exactly there. But it is not jazz. The foreign remains foreign – and the listeners make something of it. Jazz, meditation, noise. The music does not adapt. The listeners do.