Reviewed by: Dan Warburton

Despite his recent rise to prominence (at least in the niche market that is new music), thanks to a humorous sideswipe from Eddie Prevost in The Wire and the lengthy email exchange with Taku Sugimoto reprinted in the recent Improvised Music from Japan book - much of which was extracted texto from my own interview with him for Paris Transatlantic - Vienna-based composer Radu Malfatti hasn't exactly flooded the market with new product since he abandoned "traditional" (he'd prefer the word "stagnant") improvisation about ten years ago, so any new release of his music is worthy of consideration. "Indiscrete Silences" is a work for multitracked cellos performed by Greek virtuoso Nikos Veliotis, which follows what is fast becoming a standard plan for the composer (careful: nobody is immune from stagnation..), the use of a random number computer programme to determine exactly when and for how long in a predetermined time span - here twenty minutes - sounds occur, silence occupying the remaining seconds. The sounding element here is dense microtonal drone - Veliotis uses his custom-built bachbow to play three, sometimes all four, cello strings at once - but Malfatti would be the first to argue that the silences are just as important. It's an austere experience, nicely complemented by Josh Russell's packaging: minimal information on a separate printed sheet accompanying the two CDs in a metal box - the German improv label Nurnichtnur used to use the same format until they caved in and went back to the boring old jewel box a while back.

The accompanying disc features a three-movement work by Ilya Monosov, about whom little information is currently available despite extensive surfing, apart from the fact that he has collaborated with Acid Mothers Temple hirsute guitar guru Makoto Kawabata on a number of occasions. Listening to "Music for Listening" (nice title) it's hard to imagine Monosov going the full fifteen rounds with a psychedelic bruiser like Kawabata; compared with the Malfatti on a sound-to-silence rating, Radu's piece is positively Mahlerian. Monosov's work is nonetheless arresting stuff; its gently repetitive tiny blips and beeps and sporadic sprinklings of noise are poised exquisitely in surrounding silence - though little happens, each miniscule event is charged with significance. Adopting a visual arts analogy, Malfatti's grainy drones are thick Franz Kline brushstrokes, whereas Monosov's sound events are like tiny flecks of paint. Both pieces inhabit their blank canvases wonderfully though, and connoisseurs of this kind of music are strongly encouraged to check them out (as well as Bremsstrahlung's previous magnificent lowercase-sound double CD compilations, if they haven't completely disappeared into the welcoming arms of avid collectors).