»In the beginning everything was sort of very formalised, but this is all now developing into an ever-closer relationship«, muses Alexander Holm in »Pilot«, the almost eleven-minute centrepiece of his album Dial / Head Stroll, thereby offering an insight into his understanding of music. His music does not follow any immediately recognisable logic, nor does it seem to be heading towards any specific goal. It simply exists, in its most primordial form: as a means of communication, as an acoustic memory, as a modular mode of play.
In »Pilot«, a dialogue emerges between apathetic everyday poetry and the deep sound of a cello, whose wooden hum ceaselessly repeats itself. In the background, delicate, barely audible piano notes strum aimlessly. All these moments and frequencies are embedded in a barely definable, densely interwoven expanse of static noise that constantly shifts and transforms.
Holm liberates the musical elements from their collective function, allowing them to stand on their own or manipulating them before they fade into an acoustic void. From musique concrète, electroacoustic miniatures and an avant-garde understanding of Baroque form emerges an intimacy which, despite – or perhaps precisely because of – its experimental approach, is at times reminiscent of Arthur Russell. The fascination of this sound processing arises from the free interplay between sonic purism and alienation, with the voids thus created forming a resonant space.
