Avant Music News (.COM)

Swiss sound artist Zimoun likes his titles literal. Wind Dynamic Organ sounds like a kind of metaphor, but no: It is the name of an instrument. Invented by organist Daniel Glaus and his team, the Wind Dynamic Organ (Prototype III) sits in the Cathedral of Bern. Unlike with traditional pipe organs, tones can be shaped–the “dynamic” of the name.

The album finds Zimoun taking a further step in his embrace of more traditional musical materials. Until a few years ago, he worked mostly with found objects and small motors. One piece, entitled 30,000 Plastic Bags, 16 Ventilators, 2010, involved exactly that. More recently, he has built albums from overlaid and prepared guitars. Earlier this year, he released an album created on a harmonium.

The Wind Dynamic Organ, with its three manuals and 443 pipes, serves as a kind of giant harmonium. With the rich sound and overtones of a church organ, the result is Zimoun at his most “musical.”

The album divides into two parts (the “One” and “Two” of the title), which take different approaches in their ambient exploration of the instrument. The first offers rather bare-sounding intervals, like a stripped-down Kali Malone. While we get hints of the dynamic capacity of the organ, only rarely do we peek over mezzo piano or so. Zimoun coaxes an almost breathy sound from the attacks. I’m sure overlays are involved, but most of the music sounds like it could be performed simply sitting at the instrument.

The second 20-minute side goes deeper. With more tracks overlaid, the organ’s overtones start to pile up. Crescendos and decrescendos are more evident, and those breathy attacks are manipulated into something more like very gentle glitches.

Zimoun amasses plenty of complexity, but the final mix never obscures the source. And if you have a yen for more organ in a denser, more obviously designed context, there’s an album for that, too. A simultaneous release, Wind Dynamic Organ, Deviations is a set of six collaborations with sound artist Taylor Deupree. Both discs offer fascinating ways to hear the new instrument.