“Nothing less, nothing more, this Clavem is another good piece of minimalist EM in the allready vast repertoire of Gert Blokzijl”
1 Clavem 64:11 Gert Blokzijl Music
(DDL 64:11) (VF) (Minimalist Berlin School)
I don't count anymore Gert Blokzijl's albums since I reviewed Interaction in 2015. More or less 35!? It's so much and that explains partially why I was incapable to support the pace of this other sonic phenomenon who multiplies his opuses as a cat enlarges ceaselessly the circle of the small adoptable kitties. But if I do it for Alba Ecstasy, why not for Gert Blokzijl? I came to this conclusion when my friend Piero (Alluste) Monachello hurried me to listen to this CLAVEM, an umpteenth album of the Dutch synthesist who seems very alone in his decor.
This long eponym title borrows the rivers of the minimalist EM with a herd of pulsations which explore the silence. How to fill the silence? First of all, Gert spreads a wide stratum of celestial voices and hollow breezes. The whole thing forges a concerto for sibylline murmurs. A fine pulsation, rather melodious, pierces this meditative veil just before the 8 minutes. While other nasal layers get grafted to it, this thin beat evolves of it minimalist approach while showing a subtle velocity. Another line of sequences with crunchy tones invites itself around the 10 minutes. Tangerine Dream's flavors embalm these layers with a zest of the Exit years. We stay a little in these same years when the ambient structure of Clavem limps with the arrival of percussions around the 15th minute. We think at the moment of these rhythms of Cosmic Funk from Robert Schroëder here with well-oiled sequences which resound in an attractive pattern of percussive effects. Charm is that there is just not enough! This is how by limping around sequences flickering such as curious dragonflies that the first part of Clavem goes to its first passage of ambiospherical elements at around the 25th minute. A short passage where the wind can be warmer and which revives a structure with two lines of different sequences wooing a main axis of rhythm. We think at once of Mirage. To this era of Klaus Schulze's wintry sequences! With their ambient loops and their flickering appeals, these sequences swirl with different tints to try to establish a solid knot which finally dance lightly around percussions and bass percussions. We are in a beautiful universe where the awaking dream is next to fascination for a kind of down-tempo which collapses under the weight of sequences rolling as in an accelerated version of Crystal Lake, one of Gert Blokzijl's strong influences. The race of the percussions slows down, then that of the sequences gets out of breath and throws even a dark and anesthetic morphic substance shortly after the 42 minutes. This phase of relaxation modifies the tint of its breezes for a period which exceeds the 10 minutes, while Clavem hits its 3rd phase of rhythm with a more animated revival for the last 10 minutes of the album.
Here you go! You have everything, everything and everything of this other Gert Blokzijl's album who offers yet another beautiful title, nothing more, of his very vast collection of compositions. It would seem that I should listen to Human. There are others before, but that will come!
Sylvain Lupari (April 7th, 2018) ***¾** SynthSequences.com
Available on Gert Blokzijl's Bandcamp