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Marina Cyrino - argon (review)

 

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The piccolo flute and bass flute playing of Marina Cyrino is something to pay close attention to. She has developed highly personal techniques and brings out unfamiliar sounds out of her instruments. As an improviser she is exploring subtle territories. It may be misunderstood by many listeners. Those who favor action-packed improvisation may think it’s too reductionistic, and those who favor reductionistic improv may think it’s too action-packed. Personally it touches me when someone is breaking the rules in that way, not conforming to any school whatsoever. Cyrino allows the limitations of her instrument to be naked, in plain sight, and she waits to show off her incredible inventiveness and skill until a moment where it seems almost unnoticable. A new sound that you’ve never heard can creep out in such a subtle way. She doesn’t shout “Hey! Look at my amazing new extended technique!!!”, but let’s the listener search for it. The techniques aren’t used for sensationalistic purposes, but are musically motivated.

The album “argon” is a video album. Cyrino writes: “One day a fly appeared in between the double glass of my window. I have no idea how she got in. Or when/if she got out. Unable to set the fly free, for days I followed her life. "Argon" is the result of this uncanny encounter. Structured as a kind of journal, the video-album combines images I filmed with my phone in Gothenburg [February 21, March 4,5,7 2017] with improvisations for amplified piccolo and bass flute that I recorded myself while watching the images in Berlin [September 17 2022].” 

To listen to this album, one should watch the video as well. If you don’t see the video, you don’t understand the context of what she’s playing. That’s not to say that the music can’t stand on its own, but you wouldn’t quite grasp what it’s in relation to.

I think one of the main things that makes this music interesting is the ambiguous factor. Cyrino isn’t strict with the way she structures things and cuts things off. There’s sometimes the feeling of not knowing which direction it’s going in. It can feel like something is ended in the middle of a phrase and then the mind of the listener can start filling in blanks. There’s also a duality in her playing between brutality and gentleness, between clarity and ambiguity. The interplay between these things makes the listening and watching experience multidimensional. It opens a door for the listener. Rather than being told by the musician “this is how it is”, the listeners can feel that there’s a mystery that they can take part in. It becomes interactive in that way. This is also congenial with the feeling of the images, it captures something both of the everyday life and of drama. 

How to end this review…

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