Ferran Fages (acoustic guitar), Dimitra Lararidou Chatzigoga (zither). The beauty of the plucked and buzzing string. Sometimes, the music recalls Partch's kithara, both in timbre and in the open, airy freedom he brought to the instrument. There's a certain amount of electronics employed in terms of feedback and, I think, string agitators of one sort or another, generally with effectiveness as on the lengthy "6", a novella of bumps, plinks, dropped objects and hums that grow thin here and there but holds one's attention more than not. Fages always has a tonal core no matter how far afield he floats and seems to have found a like soul in Chatzigoga; there's a warmth present throughout. A smidgen of fringe-Fahey creeps into the especially lovely last track, "12", as guitar notes are bent, allowed to hang, buffeted by jangling zither strings. Good recording, relaxing like strange wind-chimes on the one hand but with a gentle knottiness that lurks beneath the surface. -Brian Olewnick "Just Outside" (http://olewnick.blogspot.com)

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The press text for this release gives a pretty complicated text about the title, which deals with a philosophical explanation of 'improvisation', which I somehow fail to comprehend, but Ap'strophe is a duo of Ferran Fages on acoustic guitar and Dimitri Lazridou Chatzigoga, of whom I never heard, on zither. They worked together on Fages' last guitar album 'Cancons Per A Un Lent Retard', in which they worked with detuning guitars, and it inspired them to go on and work on new material. That resulted in this album 'Objects Sense Objects', which has four pieces. The shortest is just under six minutes while the longest is thirty-one. That deems to me that this is all a bit long. It's almost an hour worth of improvised music 'scored' (?) for two acoustic instruments, and its an extensive exploration of the instruments used here. Things ramble, detune, pluck and hit. Due to the extensive character of the pieces I thought this was best enjoyed while sitting back and let the music come over
the listener, and not by trying to fully concentrate on each specific sound event happening. That seems to be too much asked from the listener. If you want to do that, I'd say take this in smaller quantities. But taken as a bath of sound to immerse yourself in, I think this is a fairly good album of sound explorations and improvisations for two instruments. Maybe I should try and understand the text better to see if I missed a point. (FdW) (Vital Weekly)

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Ferran Fages and Dimitra Lazaridou Chatzigoga have teamed up, perhaps on a temporary basis, to form ap’strophe; Ferran plays the acoustic guitar, while his sparring partner handles zither duties. On objects sense objectes (ETUDE RECORDS 019), the listener should be prepared for lengthy stretches of exploratory noise-making, as both players seem determined to extract anything but “normal” acoustic sounds from their chosen instruments, and tentatively approach these wooden stringed monsters as if they were tentacled aliens from Venus, or caged tigers that might bite. (One press photograph shows Fages holding his instrument with its head brushing the floor, a most unconventional posture). The winged bird on the turquoise cover promises something of the romance of freedom, but this CD spends more time on the runway and less time in the air than we might have expected. Writer Michalis Kyratsous devised the title for this CD; in explanatory notes, he speaks of “the suture of various schemas”, “ontogenesis” and “psycho-physico-acoustic stimulation”, in his attempts to “throw some light on the paradoxes of the function of objects”. -Ed Pinset (The Sound Projector)

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Eine Begegnung von Ferran Fages und Dimitra Lazaridou Chatzigoga mit tönenden Reibungen von akustischer Gitarre und Zither. Die Stichwörter dazu liefert Michel Serres‘ Die fünf Sinne. Darin spricht er davon, wie die ‚Stabilität des Objekts‘ mit der ‚Labilität der Beziehungen‘ vexiert, die Panoptik des Mißtrauens und Überwachens mit der Panik und dem Zauber des Klangs. Der Blick distanziert, Musik berührt, Lärm schießt ein. Abwesend, ubiquitär, allgegenwärtig hüllt der Lärm den Körper ein. Und mit einer Volte kippt Serres auch dies, denn seit langem schon schlafen wir nun, betäubt von Geräuschen und Musik, ohne etwas zu sehen und ohne etwas zu denken. Hermes hat die Weltherrschaft an sich gerissen, unsere technische Welt existiert nur durch das Integral des Tohuwabohus. Wie also eine psycho-physio-akustische Stimulation bewerkstelligen mit der vollen Ambiguität von Belauschen und Lauschen, der ganzen Paradoxie einer bestimmten Unbestimmtheit? Ähnlich wie Fages bei seinem Solo Al voltant d‘un paral.lel ist Ap‘strophe träumerisch auf Draht, spinnt fragile Fäden um Luftlöcher, zieht sich aus dem Tohuwabohu zurück ins Vage, schafft Luft für Poesie und gibt einem die Zeit, auch noch dem Nachhall krumm gezogener Klänge zu lauschen. [ba 63 rbd]

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Ferran Fages continues his investigation of the acoustic guitar, and here Dimitra Lazaridou Chatzigoga joins him for the ride as the duo, “ap’strophe.” Chatzigoga plays a trebly, dobro-sounding zither, and Fages, maybe having settled upon what he needed from his instrument, does a slow about-face from what we heard on last year’s al voltant d’un paral’lel, with playing that is more abstract.

Lest we get ahead of ourselves with expectations, objects sense objectes is completely atonal and arrhythmic. Little to no instance of harmony will be found here outside of chance, particularly of a traditional variety. That said, it sounds a lot lot a Fages project; he’s savvy in the practice of getting a good recording, sonically, out of his playing efforts. Chatzigoga (Greece) is new to me, and it’s clear she and Fages share the same approach, at least in this diminutive area of music.

For “3,” a call-and-response exercise, guitar and zither are played at points with loose fretting of the strings, causing buzz and premature decay of natural tones. While the entire disc benefits from a nice stereo field and near-zero noise floor, these attributes are particularly fine here, with the instruments drifting into and away from their respective channels.

The most enjoyable track is “6″ — a long duet for the instruments using extended techniques and various agitational devices, i.e. E-bows, perhaps hand-held fans, and other vibratory equipment. The individual voices and techniques of the players proliferate on this piece, with one or the other laying out at points. Fages forgoes the near-conventional playing heard on his solo disc for a style comprised of rougher edges, using a loosely held slide and over-enthusiastic fingers. Near the center of the piece both players can be heard using E-bows, Fages incorporating the device with a slide, in search of sweet spots in resonance, then quickly abandoning the found tones for something more gristly.

Other tactics are prominent with Fages, such as snapped strings detuned to lower frequencies (for the purpose of better buzz against the fretboard) and in concert with Chatzigoga’s tapping on the zither’s wood. This is a repeated feature across the disc, the investigation of other aspects/properties of the instrumentation, like scraping and rubbing surfaces.

It’s not an easy listen, as both players seem to want to undo our expectations of the natural sounds of their instruments, and doing further damage to any such recollection with playing that comes off in large part as destructive. I wish I could say the whole of it is engaging, and perhaps the duo had other, less apparent goals in mind. The disc is best-heard free of distractions or other sound on loud, strategically spaced speakers, as the quality of mastering and mix are where it succeeds most.-Al Jones (Bagatellen)

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Anyway this morning was spent slightly bemused by repeated listening to a recording of Janacek’s string quartets, (mad rollercoaster-ride music) but tonight on the journey home and again right now I have been listening to Objects sense objectes, an album by Ferran Fages and Dimitra Lazaidou Chatzigoga under the name Ap’ostrophe. In recent years Fages has released a couple of very strong solo guitar albums that saw him shift away from the intense abstractions of his work in Cremaster towards more melodic, partly composed, emotive Baileyesque playing. Here on this disc he sometimes plays in a similar manner, but also extends the approach backwards to a more textural approach. Chatzigoga plays zither, sometimes in a traditional manner, more often applying extended techniques of one kind or another though.

There are four tracks on the album, all confusingly titled. The first is called 3, the second is called 6, the third is titled 7/2 and the last 12. I have no idea why. The music is in general quite sparse. It is all acoustic and very well recorded. In a comment that followed Al Jones’ excellent review of the album at Bagatellen, Simon Reynell described the music as clean and clear. That is a great way to explain it. There are no big long silences but also no dense passages or areas where you lose track of who is doing what. Guitar notes are frequent, but carefully placed, the extended sounds we hear (eBow tones and grainy vibrations in the main) are simple, quiet and well chosen, and Chatzigoga’s use of the wide scope of the zither is kept in check, working with a small set of sounds at any one time. I am reminded of the simplicity of any number of Derek Bailey duets, but perhaps more directly by some of Taku Sugimoto’s duo recordings from around the start of the decade, his work with Annette Krebs in particular.

The opening track, at just under six minutes is a nice, controlled little piece of improvisation mostly made up of plucked notes from each musician set off against each other through careful choices of contrasting pitch. The second track however, clocking in at just over half an hour in length provides most of the album’s strongest music. Here the space given by the extended track length is used well, with some delicate buzzing of agitated strings, scrapes, plucks and purrs all dropped evenly throughout. Perhaps the track is just a little bit too long, causing it to become a sprawling expanse with some truly beautiful moments scattered throughout rather than retaining a strong sense of shape and structure, but this is a small complaint in light of some of the joys to be found throughout. Sounds are allowed to decay slowly, the death of each note captured beautifully by the excellent recording. There is a distinct physicality apparent to every sound. The listener can picture each being made and engage closely with the interaction between the musicians as everything evolves very slowly.

The third track features a lot of loosely strung notes from one instrument or the other, buzzing gently as they die away, every vibration hanging cleanly in the air. This piece, like the poignant, almost mournful closing track allow the instruments to really have their say, with every strike of every string presented beautifully. There is a kind of slowed-down blues feel to the last twelve minute study that reminds me again of Sugimoto, or perhaps actually Resonator period Akiyama. At times, when Chatzigoga’s loosely tuned zither strings purr deeply it feels like I am listening to a Robert Johnson record slowed right down to a virtual stop, with each miniscule particle of the playing audible. Later in the track some stunningly well controlled tones can be heard following individual notes, barely audible but powerfully resonant.

Obects sense objects is a lovely record, very simple and honest in its construction, placing the musician’s individual and collaborative contributions right upfront with nowhere to hide. Occasionally this reveals bad choices made, but more often than not it just exposes the emotive musicality of the two improvisers and their collaborative processes. Definitely one for rainy Sunday evenings with the lights dimmed and the stereo down low. This album is even better than the two recent Fages solo discs if you ask me, and a fine first exposure to Chatzigoga’s work (she is from Greece by the way) Really nice stuff, released on the Etude label. -Richard Pinnell (http://www.thewatchfulear.com/)

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When you think of the zither it’s impossible not to be reminded of Anton Karas’ idiosyncratic and jaunty theme to the Carol Reed’s 1949 thriller The Third Man. Whilst the twang is still present on this curious experimental album, all the music and mischief has been sucked out and we’re left with a rather textural exploration of the instrument itself, sound art style. It’s played by Dimitra Lazaridou Chatzigoga, who plucks, picks, drags, vibrates, even hits her beast, often emphasising a unique fuzzy, buzzing metallic resonance, particularly on the 31 minute track curiously titled ‘6′. She’s joined by Barcelona-based guitarist and experimental musician Ferran Fages, who contributes some spooky electro acoustic inspired guitar, often using e-bows or fans, perhaps even a violin bow.

We’re in a heady, at times atonal, arrhythmic experimental realm for this release where the duo eschew any forms of melody or musicality, where at times you even question whether they are actually playing together. This kind of questioning comes on the first piece, again oddly titled ‘3′, where the duo seem to gently trade notes, one for one, allowing time for the decay of the other before chiming in themselves, a kind of “row row row your boat”, for the avant-garde set. Midway they begin to gradually relax the rules, no longer respecting each others space, finishing the other one’s note – offering added texture. Yet this is only slight and by the end they have returned to their earlier positions. It’s this lack of compromise to listeners sensitivities, to their need for understandable patterns or structures that makes Objects Sense Objectes such a difficult listen. The textures are there, the decays, the silence, and it’s quite gentle and non-explosive, there’s even some really interesting ways in which their respective instruments are pushed into really peculiar previously nonexistent realms, particularly during the droning moments on the previously mentioned ‘6′. Sonically it’s beyond reproach, however conceptually it’ s a very difficult beast in which to find an entry point. -Bob Baker Fish (Cyclic Defrost)

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The duo of Ap’Strophe is comprised of Ferran Fages and Dimitra Lazaridou Chatzigoga on the acoustic guitar and zither respectively. Each piece is expertly improvised with a gracious amount of space given to each tone employed. The wide ranging hues that this duo is able to produce from their instruments through a variety of techniques will expand the listener’s concept of the potentials of acoustic music. This is an excellent listen which I would recommend highly. 8/10 -- Kevin Richards (Foxy Digitalis)

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Sur Objects sense objectes, Ferran Fages (guitare) et Dimitra Lazaridou Chatzigoga (cithare) font front commun et tentent de redresser ensemble leur ensemble minuscule de cordes à la dérive.

Sèches toutes, brutes et parfois lâches, celles-ci se nourrissent de leur propre discours avant qu’entre un drone inattendu, qui va et vient parmi les nouvelles propositions de Fages et Chatzigoga : plus percussives maintenant, lorsqu’il ne s’agit pas de grattements ou même – provocation ultime – d’un arpège joué proprement. Heureusement, l’usage familier n’est que passager, et reparaissent les dissonances, les silences derrière lesquels sont pensés d’autres coups et les tensions changeantes capables aussi de notes limites. Voici les tourments d’Objects sense objectes rassurés, et même confortés. -Guillaume Belhomme (Le Son du Grisli)

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