DER FINGER – Lapidarium
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Phew, I haven’t been writing about Der Finger’s music for more than three years. Frankly, their music is very challenging, but you can’t have anything but respect about this duo that plays their music according to their very own rules. With Anton Efimov on guitar, bass, effects and Evgenia Sivkova on saxophones, drums, clarinets, voice, trumpet, mandolin, effects, Der Finger play some kind of experimental avant jazz that the musicians themselves call “holistic improvisation”. Lapidarium is already the twenty-sixth release on their Bandcamp page, and this time we are in the presence of a show improvised live in 2019 at the Center of Modern Drama in Yekaterinburg, which is one of the biggest cities in Russia. The live show was joined by a contemporary dance performance and short films, and I can imagine that these visual add-ons will give an even deeper dimension to the sounds that can be heard throughout this hour-long album. It is impressive how Anton and Evgenia often manage to create walls of sound where you hardly can believe that there are only two people on stage. The background is filled with harsh effects in order to create an oppressive post-industrial atmosphere, with the musicians usually adding saxophone and guitar, as can be heard on the opener Ammolite, still a rather tame track that combines a jazz noir mood with a post-apocalyptic bleak landscape. Hendricksite has such a searing background noise that your wildest dentist nightmares seem to come to life. Turandot combines a gangster film bass line with shrieking sax parts that even John Zorn would be proud of. My personal favourite is Demantoid, a very demented piece of music with a crazy drum beat that reminds me somehow of outside musician Napoleon XIV’s They're Coming To Take Me Away Ha-Haaa!. The album ends with two longer ten-minute tracks, where Panguite somehow emulates the decadent jazz atmosphere of the album’s opener, whereas Bismuth is a harsher noise piece. Usually I can say I like an album or really don’t dig it at all, but with Der Finger, it is always a question of personal mood. I always love how they are doing their very own thing, and often like getting lost in their threatening noisescapes, but as a reviewer it is impossible to give a grade. I suggest you check it out. It is definitely not for everyone, but the uncompromising attitude of these two musicians makes make always get back to them. |
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9 songs |
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60:45 minutes |
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Genre: experimental avant jazz Label: Signora Ward |
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