Christina Kubisch - Night Flights

Unsettling audio collages from first-generation sonic sculptor

This timely reissue begins with Kubisch’s surrealist The Cat’s Dream, a rollercoaster ride for the imagination that’s like a field recording extracted from the patchwork recesses of some demon psyche, feline or otherwise. At one point a coven of banshees can be heard cruelly laughing at another’s expense, while a bestial groaning pushes its way to the foreground. Here, the inorganic detritus of the music lab becomes living flesh and it’s creepy as hell; the utopia of Basil Kirchin’s Charcoal Sketches twisted into something less benign. A sonic Frankenstein on the rampage.

The two remaining pieces, Night Flights and Circles III, are restrained by comparison but are the stronger works. If the title track builds upon the early experimentations of electronic pioneers such as Schaeffer and Cage, then Circles III has one beady eye on the future. This beautifully-executed exorcism for flute drone and vocal chant highlights Kubisch’s far-reaching influence on, among others, the assorted tribes of the nu-weird America movement, but her handling of the material is far surer than that of most of her disciples. Her ability to lure you into a dream-filled sleep is matched only by her ability to awaken you with a shudder.

Important | IMPREC 168

Reviewed by Spencer Grady
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