Glossolalia / Lines on Black

Album review

The Wet Ink Ensemble is a flexible group capable of rendering both acoustic and electronic sounds, and those interested in the state of contemporary chamber music might well check out this release, which contains a couple of works well suited to the group's talents. In the case of Sam Pluta's Lines on Black, that's no accident: Pluta serves as the group's technical director, and many of the movements of the work were composed to feature the talents of its individual members. Pluta himself is a laptop improviser and an electronic musician as well as a composer, and this background shows in his work: its strength lies in the way the movements, although quite diverse, seem to flow one into the next (sample the voice and electronics-flute and voice pair). Glossolalia, by Alex Mincek (another member of the ensemble), is also a work that ingeniously unites disparate sound sources. The word "glossolalia" is commonly translated as "speaking in tongues," but here, in the words of the ensemble members, "the concept of language is broadened to include modes of musical expression beyond linguistics -- harmonic language, melodic language, rhythmic language, gestural language, instrumental language, etc. -- each subjected to the same types of modification (phonological, morphological, syntactic) found in linguistic glossolalia." This is ingenious, and quite audible even to those whose tastes don't run to this kind of music. Like the Pluta work, Glossolalia incorporates both acoustic and electronic sounds. The name Wet Ink Ensemble connotes music that is brand new and different, and indeed these works live up to the idea.
© James Manheim /TiVo