Eric Arn, Jasmine Pender

Here is the third of our LPs documenting the new work of Vienna-based expatriate guitarist, Eric Arn. The first was the solo Orphic Resonance (FTR 281LP), the second, Paranza Corta (FTR 384LP), documenting duo work with Austrian guitarist Margaret Unknown. And now the third features duet recordings with English avant garde cellist Jasmine Pender, who also performs more noisily using the soubriquet, Rotten Bliss. Pender and Arn first met at a 2018 festival in Krems, Austria. They played a duo show soon after, and this recording session followed in August of that year, when Ms. Pender was passing through Vienna. The blend of their instruments is a strange and delicate meeting. The music involves a conversation of tonal improvising in which the separation of the instruments (so different on the surface) manages to blend in a way that component parts submerge fully into a sort of Third Mind-style musical language. The material here is basically live and, according to Eric, 'lightly-edited, no overdubs or post-processing.' The first side-long piece. 'In illo tempore,' is a mosaic of layered sheets of sound, fitted together as they gently float through space and time. The second side-long piece, 'The Serpent Ophis,' is a slowly built, chiming, breathing mass of circular gesticulation that effortlessly rises to create a shimmering, expanding plateau of sound. As with Eric's other LPs, Hyrdomancy is a wonderful dive into the unknown. Can't wait for the next one." --Byron Coley, 2020