Percorsi Musicali (IT)

Larum is the collaborative “classicaltronic” duo of American electronics player- sound artist Micah Frank and Canadian reed and electronics player Chet Doxas, both are based in Brooklyn. Larum means in Archaic English the sound of warning or danger, a commotion, or, simply, the archaic form of the word alarm, and this word corresponds faithfully with Larum’s music. Their previous albums incorporated field recordings, custom-built software, and real-time synthesis techniques, including in their irreverent interpretations of the works of Hildegard Von Bingen (The Music Of Hildegard Von Bingen Live At Public Records, Puremagnetik Tapes, 2024).

Frank was fascinated by the challenge of interpreting the seminal graphic score of Cornelius Cardew’s Treatise (comprising 193 pages of lines, symbols, and various geometric or abstract shapes, 1963-67), especially by its expressive potential and the challenge of interpreting it with electronics. He kept returning to the score often, waiting for the right moment, the right collaborators, and the right method to bring it to life. It turned out that Doxas shared a similar interest in the score’s abstract structure.

During Larum’s recent tour, Frank and Doxas were performing separate sets, but on one evening, they pulled out page 73 of Treatise and performed it spontaneously. What began as a casual experiment quickly evolved into a cohesive collaboration, together with 12K label’s founder, Brooklyn-based sound artist Taylor Deupree, and the trio continued to perform together for the remainder of the dates. The album was recorded live at Public Records and at the Bowery’s Fridman Gallery.

Larum’s Treatise by Cornelius Cardew is a collection of six pieces from that tour. The trio approached the Treatise not as an open-ended. static artifact of mid-century experimentalism score (Cardew noted that he wrote it  “with no form of introduction or instruction to mislead prospective performers into the slavish practice of doing what they are told”), but as a living document, and transformed it into a work of visual art, an abstract landscape with raw graphic beauty, still, following Cardew’s advice for the performers, to develop a personal yet logical approach to the score.

Each piece begins at the score’s consistent horizontal center line, using it as a timeline. From this anchor, Larum identified waypoints where the geometry converged and used those moments for predetermined harmonies. Larum interpreted the surrounding geometric forms as cues for dynamics, density, and instrumental voicing, allowing the score’s abstract visuals to shape the arc and texture of each performance.

Larum’s interpretation of the Treatise is perhaps the most introspective one, with its patient, slow-shifting, mostly lyrical, atmospheric drones. It is still unpredictable and thought-provoking, especially when it reaches its dark, disorienting conclusion on the last “Treatise 76”, but, clearly, vital and valid today as when it was first conceived.