Inframince / Immensity spotlights two pairs of improvisers at the root of Berlin’s experimental scene. “Inframince” finds Michael Thieke and Olivier Toulemonde submerged in analog exploration: Thieke’s clarinet curls and pulses in slowarcs, sometimes phrased, sometimes breathy and indefinite, while Toulemonde’s acoustic objects - whisks, plates, springs, marbles - flicker between percussion and mechanical sound, never quite settling into simple gesture. The deliberate pacing of their forty-three-minute improvisationdissolves boundaries between instrument and artifact, encouraging deep attention as musical events surface, fade, and blend into non-musical texture.
On “Immensity,” Lucio Capece and Jamie Drouin embody a different branch of chamber abstraction: Capece’s bass clarinet and its preparations yield droning harmonics, creaking textures, and airy multiphonics, set against Drouin’s analogue synth and radio noise. Together, they manufacture a landscape of slow evolution, where shimmers of feedback and electronic hissoffset long waves of tone, resulting in a hallucinatory balance - always morphing, never predictable. The duo privileges patience, attention, and the architecture of resonance above speed or virtuosity, making each point of contact fresh, each transition quietly dramatic.
Inframince / Immensity is foundational for Berlin reductionism and contemporary improvised chamber music. Both duos avoid spectacle, using duration, restraint, and environmentalattenuation to build a world defined less by gesture than by unstable thresholds and shiftingpresences. These recordings invite repeated listening - each pass reveals new micro-events, haunted details, and subtle dialogues between sound, memory, and transformation.