Big tip! K&L for KL and BLK+LND bring together two of Phill Niblock's final compositions, conceived by Niblock as companion works and intended to travel together. Released by Sub Rosa, the record preserves a pairing that Niblock himself wanted heard as a whole. In 2022, Niblock asked bass clarinetists Katie Porter, based in New York, and Lucio Capece, based in Berlin, to record K&L for KL, a work for two bass clarinets and electronic playback. Porter and Capece perform together as Phase to Phase, a duo whose own music often explores the fragile, complex world of soft multiphonics. Niblock's music occupies another scale entirely: massive, sustained walls of sound in which individual tones accumulate into dense, physical fields.
The recording took place on December 1, 2022, at Johan Vandermaelen's studio in Aaigem, Brussels. Porter and Capece had arrived to work with Niblock, but he had contracted COVID and joined the session via Zoom. Under Vandermaelen's direction, they spent the day recording the extensive material Niblock required, documenting the two bass clarinets in different iterations and across every octave specified for the work. Niblock later worked with Davide Capobianco in Pro Tools to construct the composition from these recordings. K&L for KL was premiered by Porter and Capece in Berlin in April 2023, with Niblock present and performing his films live alongside the music. They performed the work again in September 2023 at Niblock's 90th-birthday celebration at Silent Green in Berlin, again with Niblock performing his films live. K & L for KL is dedicated to Katherine Liberovskaya.
The companion work, BLK+LND, for acoustic bass, bass clarinet, and electronic playback, grew from recordings made in 2021 by bassist Robert Black and bass clarinetist Neil Leonard under Niblock's direction. Commissioned by Black, the work was constructed in Pro Tools by Niblock with assistance from Davide Capobianco and completed in late November 2023. Black, whom Niblock greatly admired, had died in the summer of 2023, making BLK+LND a posthumous collaboration with one of the musicians for whom it was conceived. The final chapter of these works unfolded in the last days of Niblock's life. On January 6, 2024, two days before his death, Niblock called Neil Leonard and Katie Porter from the hospital. He spoke with Leonard about plans for the premiere and tour of BLK+LND, entrusting him with carrying the project forward.
Niblock had wanted K&L for KL and BLK+LND to mirror one another and to be presented together on tour. Their pairing here fulfills that intention: two immense works for low-pitched instruments, built from the particular physicality of bass, bass clarinet, and electronic sound, and shaped through Niblock's singular process of accumulation and transformation. For Sub Rosa, this release is not simply an archival document. It realizes Niblock's final wish for these works to be heard together, bringing together two of his final compositions and preserving the musical relationships and collaborations at the heart of their creation.
