civyiu kkliu + ilya monosov cartolina postale

Using only metal, vinyl, wood, and a music box, sound artists Civyiu Kkliu and Ilya Monosov deliver one improvised track of delicate abstract minimalism on this album titled Cartolina Postale - an intimate musical post card if you like.
I don't think that I've received more than a half-dozen postcards in my entire life, and I've mailed even fewer than that. Most of them displayed a picture associated with some locale and all of them included an epigrammatic message. In essence, each postcard was a intimate memorandum that became a relic conveying a personal impressions of time, place, and emotion. In the case of Cartolina Postale, the message is communicated through the medium of music rather than in words.

The press release that accompanied this album says that "the duration and nature of the work corresponds to the small/intimate/charged space of a postcard." I like that analogy as the music is unmistakably minimal (but not lowercase), personal, and emotional. Unlike many collaborative works these days where the artists share ideas and sound files via mail or the internet, Cartolina Postale was improvised with Civyiu Kkliu and Ilya Monosov working in the same physical location.

It appears that this sound piece had its conception back in 2002 at which time the artists began some preliminary improvisations. A shorter, but conceptually similar piece appears on Ilya Monosov's album Architectures on Air and Other Works [Elevator Bath (2005)]. He's joined there by Ciyyiu also.

The musical "instruments" used on this twenty-four minute improvisation are amazingly meager - Monosov playing a music box with only toothpicks and Kkliu scraping a short metal plate with an edged tip across a blank piece of vinyl revolving at a constant rate, and the music itself is correspondingly abstract and sparse and is presented at very low volume. The disc comes attached to a post card and assumes the role of the written message that one would normally find in its place. Listening without head phones proved very frustrating as the delicate sounds were is easily blanketed by background noise. However, listening with headphones proved to be quite rewarding, revealing a soft, but intricately textured piece constructed from fragile music box tones and restrained scraping/rustling sounds.

Cartolina Postale is an perfect instance of minimal, abstract sound art in the strictest sense. Sounds brought to life in a spontaneous manner, apparently recorded as is with no effects, and given to the listener for individual interpretation. Nice.

reviewed by Larry Johnson, 04-11 - 2008 in earlabs