Instrumental focus

"Inane and Serene" (Savium, 2006)

How does one make sure that speechless music doesn't lose its focus? With the album "Inane and Serene" Savium delivers a number of suggestions that seem more inane than serene.

Claus Hansen is the man behind the kiss. Savium, as it is called in Latin, is a solo project that in fact isn’t ”soloistic” at all. In fact it is the absence of a front figure that is Savium’s trademark. It is instrumental and experimental rock music without any solid standing ground.
But how does such a cocktail work?

Instrumental music has a long and wide tradition with roots in the classic music. The big common denominator is ”the speechless”, which temporarily isn’t the same as ”the center less”. The human voice is typically replaced by a solo instrument or a certain mood which the wholeness of the orchestra delivers. In the last case we’re talking about ”programming music”; Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons is the most common example of that. In this connection I will point out that the titling is crucial when you work program-musically, because it is the title that guides the listener on the right track to the idea of the music. It is the title that is our primary holding point.

In the lack of a solo figure Savium is closest to program music. When Claus Hansen names his tracks, he shows partly a love for English and Latin foreign words, and partly for the paradox of form i.e. the comparison of two opposite elements, for example in the album title Inane and Serene. These two loves reappears in Hansen’s way of composing. In general he likes to complicate and intellectualise a many-layered soundscape while he works purposely with fractures.

The album contains 12 tracks but could just as easily have been cut into 20-25 pieces because several tracks makes abrupt stops which makes noticeable different parts or fractures. For example hear how the track Evading My Resurrection resurrects at least three times (the title must be ironic). A certain figure is played x number of times to then move on to a new figure. At times it gets a riff-character, which means that you as a listener are missing something that can gather the music; you miss the solo figure: the human voice. The titles are usually more mis- than guiding, and therefore the impression becomes more inane than serene.

Savium does in my opinion not work as instrumental music at all. It seems more like a good amount of experimental rock music lacking its vocal, and I don’t think that is Savium’s goal. Claus Hansen refers to English Mogwai as being a role model for the aimed instrumental genre. I think there is a lot of experience to pick up here, because when Mogwai opposite to Savium succeeds with the style it is because they work with dynamic instead of fractures, and because they hit a minimalist, uncomplicated sound. That way there becomes room for the musical mood which the listener can lose itself in; there becomes a space for instrumental focus. On same occasion I want to highlight Cacophony as Savium’s most successful track. Here it is the combination of the a-piece’s minimalism and the b-piece’s dynamic that makes me see the cacophony as a finished wholeness - see that works.

Reviewed by:
Helle Juhl Lassen

Translated by:
Claus M. Hansen

Publishing info:
Published at Mymusic.dk October 9. 2006