Difficult music, what does that mean? Is it something at the opposite end of the spectrum to easy listening? Or is it all relative to the individual? I mean there are some people (and this may be a confession) who find any Abba song excruciatingly difficult to get through. Or maybe difficulty simply means that the sounds don’t conform to accepted traditions, to what is expected from melody, chords, harmony, tempo…. Or maybe the measure of difficulty is merely a question of “can you dance to it?”.
Whatever definition you take, a consequence of the difficult tag can be that your music gets pushed to the margins and may struggle to get heard. That’s why labels like Difficult Art and Music (or more affectionately DAMM) are important portals into a fringe world of listening discovery. Run by composer and instrumentalist Daniel Alexander Hignell-Tully, DAMM has provided forthright support to musicians who challenge and experiment since its first release in 2021. Now the latest addition to a ground-breaking catalogue comes from Hignell -Tully himself with the customary cassette/digital issue of ‘I Hope They Let Us Hunt Like Men In The Next Life’.
It’s a tangential shift from his last physical DAMM release, the searing electronic charge of ‘Post Partum’ by Be Kind Cadaver, and maybe a re-acquaintance with the long form, process pieces of 2021’s ‘Semblances’. As always, with work that has a conceptual underpinning, context is important and characteristically Hignell-Tully’s idiosyncratic propositions invite curiosity and investigation. The core tracks on ‘I Hope They Let Us Hunt Like Men In The Next Life’ grew from the composer’s time living, presumably by choice, in an ex-sweet factory deep in the Italian countryside. Intrigued by the signage around the site’s perimeter, warning anyone not to amble across the adjoining fields during the hunting season because of the risk of being shot (presumably by accident), Hignell-Tully set about capturing the tension that lurked around him. Asking a bunch of presumably willing local people to dance through the threatening undergrowth, he recorded their movements as a graphic score to complete phase one of the project.
Phase two then took shape with the notated sheets handed over to a trio of musicians, Hignell -Tully included on synthesiser and piano, to translate into sonic form. The results of this transition are two visceral stretches of timbral music, both representing the connection of physical action and responses, the dancing, the drawing and the trio’s consequential instrumental deliberations. I Hope They Let Us Hunt Like Men In The Next Life Part 1 may have no obvious compositional form but it is an extended piece with a purposeful dramatic intention. The range of tones and textures that violinists Kev Nickells and John Guzek wring and wrestle from their instruments at times terrify and often ache with a pained tension. These sounds, plucked, tapped or dragged raw by bow on strings, frequently defy all assumptions about what the violin should produce and appear as the main protagonists… but that’s not the whole story.
From the off you are aware of the background electronic whispers that provide some grounding beneath the volatile strings and as Part 1 intensifies the detailing from Hignell Tully’s restrained synthesisers and piano becomes more significant. Those swampy bass notes, maybe modified from the electric piano, instantly grab attention, sometimes sonorous but occasionally burbling. Later a whirring higher pitched oscillation becomes so mesmerising that you almost lose track of Nickells’ and Guzek’s wired conversations.
Attempting to describe ‘I Hope They Let Us Hunt Like Men In The Next Life’ and portray the intensity of what is going on is destined to fall short given this challenging music’s complexity. What can be said is that in listening you become consumed by the tension of the scenario, the nervous dance of the trespassers through the hunters’ domain that transmits, via Hignell Tully’s graphic record, to the musicians’ semi-improvised response to the experience. There seems to be jeopardy all around and that is compelling.
The comparatively briefer I Hope They Let Us Hunt Like Men In The Next Life Part 2 loses none of this energy or impact and certainly offers little room to reflect. The piano bass may provide more flow and, combined with the circling oscillations, the anchorage of a foundational drone but the strings lose none of their dynamism as they sweep between stealth and panic. There are moments of unsettling extremes but never meaningless cacophony as the piece sets guttural rumbles and sudden crashes against the almost animalistic yelps of the violins. An ending is never certain and when it comes, with a brief fizz of white noise, you remain tantalisingly unsure.
As a coda Hignell-Tully astutely allows for contrast with the fascinating Percussive Piano as a Process of Line-making, an early exploration of the possibilities of the line-making score that he has continued to develop. Presented here as a solo piano piece, the track evolved into more expansive compositions on the ‘Weaves/Threads’ and ‘Lines’ albums that he recorded as Distant Animals for Lucerne’s Hallow Ground label. It also links naturally to the approach used on ‘I Hope They Let Us Hunt Like Men In The Next Life’ part 1 and 2, while, beyond any methodological interest, stands as an impressive statement in its own right.
There’s a thrill and sonic excitement about the semi-improvised tight rope that Hignell-Tully walks as he interprets his graphic score for this recording. From sombre pauses allowing the piano notes to resound calmly, to jaunty passages with a classic melodic swell which suddenly crumble into discord, it’s an edge of your seat journey with slightly more familiar reference points than the preceding tracks. There’s even a hint of finale in the closing sections and poignancy in the delicate drift of the ending notes. Percussive Piano as a Process of Line-making certainly brings some resolution to a release that overall needs an investment of time and mind but then that maybe is the point of difficult music, it shows us the rewards of really listening.
Get your copy of ‘I Hope They Let Us Hunt Like Men In The Next Life’ by Daniel Alexander Hignell-Tully on limited edition cassette + graphic score/ cassette/ and digital direct from DAMM HERE
