Review Text
Genre -bending, -skipping and -skirting, vocalist/composer Theo Bleckmann has been a steady force in the New York downtown music scene for over a decade. Recognized for his concert- and vocal/visual-work, Bleckmann has performed worldwide on some of the great stages including Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall, the Sydney Opera House and the new library of Alexandria, Egypt. The New Yorker called him a 'local cult favorite', the New York Times 'excellent' and according to OUT Magazine Bleckmann is 'a singer who has only recently fallen to earth. ' Bleckmann's unusual vocal capabilities have inspired some of today's great composers such as Mark Dresser, John Hollenbeck, Phil Kline, Ben Monder, Meredith Monk, Kirk Nurock, Bob Ostertag, Michael Tilson Thomas, and Bang on a Can's David Lang, Michael Gordon and Julia Wolfe, to create pieces especially for and with him. He also lent his voice to Bobby McFerrin's upcoming recording. Bleckmann has a long-standing track record of working closely with composer and performance artist Meredith Monk and her Vocal Ensemble since 1994 ['mercy' -ECM records]. Furthermore he has performed with such artists as Laurie Anderson, Anthony Braxton, Steve Coleman, Mark Dresser, Dave Douglas, Philip Glass, John Hollenbeck, Anthony Jackson, Sheila Jordan, Ikue Mori, Ben Monder and the Bang On A Can All-stars and was a guest vocalist wit the San Francisco Symphony Chorus, Estonian Radio Choir, Merce Cunningham Dance Company and Mark Morris Dance Group and contributed his unique vocal capabilities to the soundtrack to Spielberg's 'Men in Black'. Bleckmann's new, ambient solo vocal CD 'anteroom' has just been released on Traumton Recordings and is currently working on 'The night they invented champagne' for Winter&Winter. 'anteroom' marks Theo Bleckmann's first solo voice CD and his first release in 4 years after his critically acclaimed 'origami' on Songlines.?The idea to create an extended composition as an all vocal soundscape has been in the planning for a few years between him and Traumton producer Stefanie Marcus. Anteroom draws from Bleckmann's many years of performing solo voice concerts, creating vocal performance pieces and voice installations. For the past 15 years Bleckmann has organically incorporated live electronic looping and processing into his singing and also contributed his unique sound sculptures to the music of Laurie Anderson, John Hollenbeck, Ben Monder, Todd Reynolds and Phil Kline, among others. For anteroom, Bleckmann decided to forego the use of his usual set-up in favor of a simple digital delay, which, at times, allows the pitch to be extended way beyond the normal length of a human breath. Every track has been recorded separately and no pitch altering of any kind has been used to create this music. Every note you hear has been sung directly into the mic. The attempt to create a record that is both human and electronic results in a sound that is both, instantly touching, and foreign at first. This dichotomy takes it into a very personal realm of an inner, aural world of suspense and space. With anteroom Bleckmann is going into the in-between of either worlds, tightrope-walking between the two.?Bleckmann explored a 'going into the in-between' in his cut of 'I remember you' on origami (Songlines). Into this well-known jazz standard he gradually inserted more and more (live-performed) CD-skips which eventually take over the song, turning it into an extended CD skip sounds with dizzying density, dissolving into nothing at the end. In anteroom, Bleckmann again, attempts to focus on the overlooked. He lengthens single sung-notes ad infinitum, thus stretching time and it's perception. He then adds another note, and in layering those, he creates ever changing sound sculptures that slowly allow for the ear to discover ever new and deeper layers. The final chord of anteroom is held for, what seems like, infinity. Time here has slowed down to almost imperceptible increments of change. Anteroom
