antoine beuger/michael pisaro: this place/is love

The work begins in very un-Wandelweiser fashion, with a strong note played on, I think, a harpsichord (prepared spinet?), quite forthrightly. After several identical notes, a recording of an interior space enters and a surprising sequence of chords occurs, four of them, very romantic in nature. Four more follow, belying the first quartet, somewhat sour, then three more, ambiguously between the first two sets in feeling. So begins This Place/Is Love, a kind of quiet epic (76 minutes in length) that, as with much or Pisaro's recent work, resists easy encapsulation or structural grasp. For listeners familiar with the work of either creator, especially Pisaro, the various sounds employed will be familiar: smoothly modulated sine tones, nondescript (but fascinating) field recordings, single, pristine guitar notes, extended silences; that harpsichord is the one that stands out as unusual. But of course it's not about audio novelty but the sequencing and layering of those sounds and, here especially, their resonance with [Beuger's] text. To my ears this is brilliantly accomplished, in a, for lack of a better term, poetic manner that's next to impossible to quantify." -- Brian Olewnick, Just Outside