Martin Taxt releases new album Second Room on CD, LP and DL on SOFA on the 27th of May.
Second Room is Taxt’s second album in a series of works investigating possible relations between music and architecture. In this work written for alto saxophone, two microtonal tubas, double bass, church organ, hand bells and modular synthesizers he is inspired by the Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto, and his ideas on different concepts of living.
In a lecture at the Harvard University in 2011, Fujimoto sets up a comparison between the nest and the cave, as two fundamentally different ways of living concepts. Whereas the nest represents safety, conformity and predictability, a space designed for people, the cave on the other side represents the unknown, a naturally shaped space, not designed for the purpose of living. It can be uncomfortable to enter the dark cave but spending time inside one can gradually start to adapt to the space. By rethinking our concept of space and the relation between space and human body we will eventually discover different functionalities within the cave and innovate new functions in the already designed space.
credit: Leikny Havik Skjærseth
” A grid system with 36 pitches was the starting point of the composing process. Imagining the grid as a cave, I made 3 different paths through the grid as if I was exploring the cave. These three melodies became the outline for this composition. On ‘Disruption, disjunction, deconstruction’ the musicians are exploring the 36 pitches independently, as if, quoting Fujimoto; finding their own small favourite comfortable places inside the natural cave. ” Martin Taxt
Martin Taxt – Second Room
CD // LP // DL 27th May 2022
SOFA588
Second Room track listing:
1 Cave vs Nest 11’27”
2 Swelling Forms of Domes 10’24”
3 Paving Seen From Above 10’56”
4 Disruption, Disjunction, Deconstruction 11’45”
Line up:
Martin Taxt – microtonal tuba, hand bells, composition
Rolf Erik Nystrøm – alto saxophone, hand bells
Laura Marie Rueslåtten – organ, hand bells
Inga Margrete Aas – double bass, hand bells
Peder Simonsen – microtonal tuba, hand bells, modular synthesizer