Phillip Sollmann And Konrad Sprenger Modular Organ System

Sollmann and Sprenger here tackle some of the most controversial and interesting aspects of the
organ - an instrument that since ancient Greek and Roman times was devised to allow a single
performer to produce a larger ensemble sound.
‘Modular Organ System’ started life as an installation piece devised by Sollmann and Sprenger
as a new model for a modular system that could be used for composition, performance and tool
development in acoustic space. This album is the first proper documentation of that work, offering
two long-form drone compositions that consider space, tonality and acoustics. The duo built the
system out of tubes, air pumps and vibrating reeds, which they could place around a space as
if the instrument were a sculpture. Visitors were encouraged to wander around the installation
and wonder as the sound shifted; sometimes hearing just electrical buzzing from its motors,
and sometimes just its engrossing low end frequencies. “The visitor has the impression of being
inside an organ itself,” composer Arnold Dreyblatt writes in the liner notes, “rather than listening to
it externally.”
On ‘Modular Organ System’, we don’t have the benefit of being able to physically move around the
space, but we do get to interface with the root of Sollmann and Sprenger’s process: its peculiar
tonality, commanding sound, and hypnotic interplay of airy, ancient drone. They use pure power
to lull us into the opening side, with non-tempered harmonics that boom from the speakers. Even
without seeing the instrument itself, it’s easy to hear its unusual properties - at times sounding
like archaic, phased woodwind playing alongside a church organ, or atonal bagpipes in the
distance, over a hill or a mountain. The slow-moving wails connect us wholly to history, but the
recording and texture feels decidedly modern.
On the dense, overpowering second side, the duo layer their drones into a wall of humming
vibrations. These sounds crack and distort naturally, sounding as powerful as Tim Hecker’s
signature granulations but blessed with spiritual magic. Midway into the piece, the drones
descend into near silence before building again into a slowly chugging rhythm that seems to
directly reference Sollmann and Sprenger’s motorik collaborations with Oren Ambarchi, and which
leave us re-evaluating the instrument’s technological and historical boundaries. It makes for a
stunningly meditative, disorienting listen