The sun is out, the temperature is great (not too warm, not too cold), a perfect day late August, so why
on earth did I decide to pick up a CD to review as the first thing on this beautiful day of which the title
is: ‘dear god, let us die’? Partly because I was already playing it and I didn’t look at the title too closely
yet. Titles are important here, it seems, ‘as historical events intersect right into the contemporary
sound making, slit through their titles sharp cites in our listening present era and pry our eyes towards
the seemingly inexplicable backyard of history’, Küchen writes on the press text, and I have no idea
what that means, but there is a picture of a concentration camp on the cover, and maybe it’s all
connected, image, text and such. Küchen plays alto and tenor saxophones, radio, iPod, electronic
tambura, speakers and Kapsch & Söhne speaker. Two of the five pieces are done with overdubs and
the others are unedited live recordings, which is something I must admit I didn’t hear easily, but now
I know I believe to hear also. Küchen is a well-known improviser and in his solo work he plays some
very haunting stuff, both live and overdubbed. In his live pieces it’s all a bit more traditionally
improvised, but all along the extra sound material he uses, it’s not some hectic, crazy saxophone
playing. This was recorded in a crypt in the Swedish city of Lund and that adds a wonderfully strange
atmosphere to the music. It’s a natural reverb, obviously perhaps, but it also seems to be placing a
‘cover’ over the music, making it less sharp and adds a melancholic tonal quality to the music. When
Küchen goes drone like, such as in the second half of ’Purcell In The Eternal Deir Yassin’ one no longer
believes to hear improvised music but some strange movie score, about, perhaps indeed, a monastery
with strange events going on. This I thought was an excellent CD.