{"id":3587,"date":"2014-01-01T22:21:10","date_gmt":"2014-01-01T22:21:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jazzusa.com\/ilhan-mimaroglu-outstanding-warrants\/"},"modified":"2011-01-01T22:21:10","modified_gmt":"2011-01-01T22:21:10","slug":"ilhan-mimaroglu-outstanding-warrants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jazzusa.com\/?p=3587","title":{"rendered":"Ilhan Mimaroglu – Outstanding Warrants"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ilhan Mimaroglu <\/font>
Outstanding Warrants<\/font>
(Southport – 2001)
\u00a0 by John Barrett <\/font><\/p>\n

Ilhan Mimaroglu was an electronics pioneer, recording his first efforts in the late \u0091Fifties and working many years at the Columbia-Princeton Music Center, the first school devoted to electronic music. (He’s also the nephew of Atlantic Records’ Ahmet Ertegun, and for a decade ran Finnadar Records, Atlantic’s classical-music label.) His works are formal at the center, using dissonance as an instrument and not a random flavor. “Fanfare” starts with a low rumble (a sampled piano?) joined to a noisy synthesizer (the “horns” of the fanfare.) A placid interlude is cut short, leading to ping-pong sounds and science-fiction squeals. <\/p>\n

“Istanbul Fog” mixes bells, deep horns, and clarinets (all done on synths, and very well.) Hopeful themes emerge, and are buried in the bellowing drones. “Cipher Casting” could be a string concerto: spooky themes are stated low and repeated up high. (There’s some similarity to Edgard Var\u00e9se, with whom Mimaroglu worked.) “Prelude #20” ascends slowly, tense as it gathers strength. An oboe-like theme twists around, sad without direction \u0096 this leads to “Letting a Hundred Flowers Bloom”, where Mao’s ode to tolerance is crushed by a flood of noise. Rarely has a statement been made so simply … and so effectively. <\/p>\n

Some of the later works are freer in structure \u0096 more wild, and to me less interesting musically. “Le Belle et La Poubelle” starts with a demented take on “America the Beautiful”, and shrinks to a mournful whistle. A silent-movie organ leads to a funky drum machine and several eerie moans. (In mid-song it switches to a gentle waltz \u0096 disjointed, but it works.) “Prelude #24” is a gathering of stomach-growls, accompanied by snapping rubber bands. “Bleaker Streets: is a flashback, its beeps and boops suggesting the early days of electronic music. The landscape grows crowded, and the notes pop up like weeds. Synthetic violins buzz through “Prelude #22”, spooky and fast; there’s a spacey horn on “Melody Lost and Found”, calling to the stars. It’s what we thought the future would sound like; if you’ve a taste for avant-garde, this’ll make you nostalgic for the 25th century. <\/font><\/p>\n

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