Inclusion Principle

clarino oscura is the second in a series of EPs being released this year by Martin Archer and Hervé Perez to celebrate twenty years of them making music together as the duo Inclusion Principle. They insist on billing them as EPs, but, if the two releases to date are anything to go by, they boast as much content as a lot of albums. There again, IP albums are nothing if not generous with their content, often coming in at well over forty-five minutes. EPs, then, by IP standards. The music begins with morse code ‘x’s along with a string of ‘n’s and ‘g’s among other things. (I annoy myself, but I can never help trying to decode what’s going on when people use Morse code off short wave bands in music, as, as a radio ham, I have from time to time contributed to the goings-on there myself! Long live the magic). These gradually become submerged in a slow-moving, largely electronic soundscape, sometimes melodic, sometimes noise-based. The overall effect is evocative of something ill-defined but slightly discomforting. If somebody made a TV drama series based on J.G. Ballard short stories, these guys could do the music. Approaching eleven minutes in, the texture picks up a drum beat. Towards the end this drops away, to be replaced by a haunting shakuhachi melody. Going right back to their eponymous first album (released in 2006 and still an engaging listen), there is something deeply original about the way Inclusion Principle put their music together. It’s as if two creative musicians have been let loose in a studio with a whole lot of resources they’d not heard used before and discovered all sorts of original, creative ways to deploy them (perhaps that’s where the name comes from: if something sounds interesting, or apt, it gets included). As I said, this is the second release in a series. I can’t wait for the third. – Dominic Rivron, INTERNATIONAL TIMES https://internationaltimes.it/new-awakenings-and-empty-spaces/

In my review of their earlier release, The Call of a Crumbling World, I mentioned that it would be the first of a series of Inclusion Principle recordings scheduled for release in 2025; now a few months later, Clarino Oscura and Quantised Entanglement are out, and they couldn’t be more different from one another. As a refresher, Inclusion Principle is the improvising duo of Hervé Perez and Martin Archer, and they have been recording and releasing music together for twenty years — their first album, The Inclusion Principle, was attributed to Perez and Archer, and released in 2006, and all of the recordings since then are attributed to Inclusion Principle. Between them, they play modular synthesizers, organ, bass synth, clarinet, shortwave, all manner of saxophones, laptop (field recordings, beats, percussives, electronics), shakuhachi, harmonica, and just about anything else within reach, which makes for a mighty rich sonic palette to create with.

Clarino Oscura is a single 30-minute improvisation that wanders through numerous sections as it proceeds, much like a conversation that wanders from one topic to the next, the electronics in various forms seems to be everpresent, while the bass synth and various woodwinds come and go as they please, along with sounds of radio static and field recordings, birds, buzzing bugs, bells, occasional drum cadences that quickly appear out of nowhere and fade, rumbling, electronic echoes and all kinds of incidental happenstance — truly a magical potion of curious sonic events, but it’s best not to spend a lot of energy analyzing what you are hearing, and instead just go with the flow and immerse yourself. It’s over all too soon — 30 minutes goes by pretty fast, though there are recognizable signposts in the ongoing sonic tapestry that let the listener know where they are along the timeline of the piece. When the shakuhachis echo through the distant canyons, you’ll know you are in the final minutes. – Peter Thelen, EXPOSÉ