Subtext to release Yair Elazar Glotman album

The Bristol label’s first release of 2015 will be a full length from the Berlin-based sound designer.

Subtext may not be the most active of labels but when the Bristol outpost does release something it’s worth knowing about. Last year brought about the industrially Arctic debut of Eric Holm with his Andøya album, a favourite LP among the Juno Plus writers that James Manning felt was “rugged and unforgiving in its isolation,”. Its release preceded Nimbes, a soundtrack created by electro-acoustic engineer Yair Elazar Glotman and Emptyset’s James Ginzburg developed inside Berlin’s cavernous Kraftwerk building with visual artist Joanie Lemercier for a performance at Montreal’s Société des Arts Technologiques. The three-track single featured a version by the artist in mention and Eric Holm’s 10/50 Mix, and now the Berlin-based Yair Elazar Glotman debuts in full on the label with Études.

Described as a learned classical contrabass player, Subtext call each of Elazar Glotman’s 10 album compositions a solo performance, and say he “interrogates his instrument, drawing out hidden resonances, physical vibrations, and explorations of uncharted territory of the instrument’s acoustic dynamic range.” The works appearing on Études were composed in Berlin, recorded in EMS Studios, Stockholm, and mixed down with Ginzburg in the Multiverse studio, Bristol. With a sound similar to Greek trio Mohammad, Subtext explain Elazar Glotman’s compositions with his contrabass work outside the instrument’s natural dynamic range, with close-micing various parts of the contrabass’ body and strings helping to reveal, “previously obscured resonances,” while “energy expenditure is transferred into colossal rumbles and physical vibrations.”

Subtext will release Études by Yair Elazar Glotman on July 17.

Tracklisting:

1. On Forgetting (Prelude)
2. Oratio Continua (part I)
3. Retenant
4. Drifts
5. Nadir
6. Oratio Continua (part II)
7. Ulterior
8. Agnosia
9. Rattel
10. Lamant (Coda)