TORSION

ALBUM NOTES

Musical gestures come to life and evolve in Alvaro Domene’s ‘Torsion’. From
superimpositions of dense polyrhythms, interlocked scale shifts, to sonics as strata
and atmospheric layerings: there is an orientation to overall structures and a
simultaneous intense focus on local texture and timbre, a curiosity for micro seed/
kernels of motifs and phrases which then give way, scale shifting and voiced by the
guitar, to joyous, raging, leaping legatos across a complex percussive soundscape,
and then again to vaster, orchestrally textured landscapes.

Conceptually, what drives this project? Is it concerned, as one title suggests, with the
erosion of sound? Or the erosion of the tools of sound, leading to a collapse and fusion
between systems? The pillars of ostinato and recognizable, partly stable rhythms
undergird a cloud of unknowing, a reverse labyrinth in registers above. The guitarist’s
mind splits and ies mercurial across the other passages of this labyrinth. Textures
grained in foreground and farther away, immersive, all clamor for attention: overlapping
syntagmas of rhythm and timbre. Pure pleasure of sound and musical formalisms. And
cognition in ux. 



Domene explores syntax using what he calls ‘certain gestures’ which might, we
hypothesize, lead to an ‘evolution of cognition’- on the part of the player as well as the
listener. There is a tension in built as well between the guitarist as programmer, as
engineer of rhythm and metric: and the guitarist as pure improviser. Domene says that
he is interested in parameter related agency, in testing the boundaries to generate
spontaneous material, and in the elasticity of improvisatory languages. These concerns
all point to a larger meta-compositional strategy which aims at a renovation of
attentional focus- on our part as listeners, and also on the musicians’ part as they
negotiate the complex and only partly predictable rhythm underpinnings of the music.
If as Domene says, this music is in part about a consensus based decision making
process to generate musical ideas, then the consensus is akin to ‘human in the loop’
processes we see increasingly with AI and machine-learning enhanced art and science.

Thus another one of the end goals of this form of music making would be to negotiate
not only the ‘human to human’ aspects of musicking, but also the human to machine
interfaces. If cognition is rebooted by the process, it is not only ours as listeners.
Implicitly, a machine cognition is formed and in ected.

It’s a wind-up, the torqued intensity of the guitar tone arcing and layering: and hovering
high above the tectonics of the system we can perceive a cellular automata of sound,
outlined by the crystal matrices of the percussion. Attention shifts across the
interlocked grooves and islands, new de nitive phrases establish a psycho-acoustics
of morphemes resequenced- the breakdown of grooves giving way to a di erent
thought process- a euphoric celebration & uni cation of mind which then di uses back

Ed Keller, on TORSION
for Alvaro Domene
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 out into open space, delicate percussions… and the void from whence it came. 


In one’s memory, the bass ostinatos and substructures of music continue, as we walk
across a burning desert, small pieces of metal chiming in our garments… the wind
evoking voices and distortions in the Eleusinian spaces the music provokes.

Rich textures of mind proceed from these meshworks. 


Why strive for this in sound? Presumably, again: to lead to a di erent mode of agency,
and of mind. Domene makes music contributing to an extension of the sonic lexicon,
and sees the chance for what he calls ‘expanded options through morphological
freedom.’ Morphological freedom refers to the possibility that mind and self might be
mobile, uid- that the form we currently adopt is not the only and limiting form. There is
a radical kind of equality we might envision through the ethics of a world building
project driven by curiosity and love- love for sound, for formal structure, and for
awareness. 



‘Thinking no-thing, will limited self unlimit.’ Zen sutra



The gambit here is that these emergent sonic morphologies will lead to that ethology.
This is, as Bateson put it, a step to an ‘ecology of mind’. If some form of
transhumanism could emerge from Domene’s project, it might be one that wants,
needs, demands and loves sound- and includes sonics as part of a deeply embedded
mode of thinking and being. 



Can we imagine ‘being’ without sound? Perhaps we can, but absence of sound for us
is a ‘void of being’- and in contrast: in the mind that evolves from Domene’s project,
the World is Sound.

-Ed Keller

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Ed Keller, on TORSION
for Alvaro Domene
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 TORSION: Track meditations

Devoid of Sham

Overlapping syntagmas of rhythm and timbre. The rst guitar lines function at
least as much as atmospheric sheets of texture as they do tonally and
melodically. Spatial depths in the soundscape are articulated further by the
extreme closeups of select percussion instruments, contrasting the deeper
spaces the distorted guitar navigates… or the duplicated, triplicated, clean
layered delay line repeated percussion/guitar which forms a cloud of woody
chimes around us in the second section. As we pass the halfway point, clean
guitar joins again the shimmering clusters accumulating around us. But a closing
crescendo heralded by deeper ostinato rumbling in the wide stereo eld then
recapitulates the energy of the rst guitar lines and foregrounds a solo in
resonance with arcing textures behind.

Erosion

Guitar electronica across the spatial eld- a sci sountrack- frames percussion
as an all too close texture of bubbling, boiling, frictive roughness; and dissipates
into clean guitar ostinatos that allow groove to simplify, build. Erosion of sound?
Or erosion of the tools of sound, leading to a collapse? The pillars of ostinato
upholding a cloud of unknowing, a straight line, a reverse labyrinth. How do the
pieces t? If clues can be left by a bass drum anchoring our attention… our
cognition splits and ies mercurial across the other passages of this labyrinth.
Textures grained in foreground and farther away, immersive, all clamor for
attention. Cognition fractures. A superposition of gears enmeshed with vortices.
Metallic tones… space harpsichords, blue jets, whistles reorient the vagrant high
hat and snare. There’s always something furtive, in the background, gnawing
away at the gears… Vortices are carved back by a uid octave leaping ring
modulated solo, and that uid is crystallized and chipped away by the gears of
rhythm. A foreboding doom metallic pedal chord rings in the conclusion. Far
away now the uid solo decays into upper range timbres and a nal closing
phrase.

Torsion

There’s a deceiving comfort in the slow build, which is destabilized by a driving

kick drum. A space emerges, drawn in pointillisms and boulderlike punctuation
of bassline and metallic pedal phrases; then graven with arcings of guitar
demarcating other widths of spatiality. An interregnum takes over with layerings
of breathy, powdered air expulsion and overdriven and octave swept guitar. It’s a
torsion wind-up, the torqued intensity of the guitar tone arcing and layering.
Hovering high above the tectonics of the system we can perceive a cellular

Ed Keller, on TORSION
for Alvaro Domene
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 automata of sound, punctuated by the crystal matrices of the percussion, which
moves back to the minimal foreground to conclude.

[And around 4.15, a distant call and response echo of Fripp’s maverick, wild
soaring lines on Sailor’s Tale [King Crimson, Islands] hovers as an unexpected
resonance. ]

Flux

The bowing layers and a spattering, tapping, heat schleering space. The slow
development and the low ostinato which underpins a wide, echoing space of
tubes, of clean metallics… insistent scratches o set the horns which in various
tracks, build out an absolutely MATERIAL like evolution, an unfolding. In one’s
mind the bass ostinato continues, as one walks across a burning desert, small
pieces of metal chiming in one’s garments… the wind evoking voices and
distortions in the Eleusinian spaces it provokes. The ostinato sits close to us as
it is, indeed, a hallucination we maintain so that we can step, and step again,
across the desert landscape. Rich textures of mind proceed from these
meshworks.

[ see Laswell, Material: Hallucination Engine.]

Morphological Freedom

Where do we stand in the call and response across the mix, through the opening
wooden percussion and spatial reverberations? And then how do we feel:
through the guitar in synth-like ostinatos which give a stasis to the space
opening around us… Attention shifts across the interlocked grooves and islands,
new de nitive phrases establish themselves. A psycho-acoustics of morphemes
resequenced- the breakdown of grooves giving way to a di erent cognition-
and the epic, almost triumphant mixing of horn and underpinning metallic pedal
chords, again- a theme in several of the tracks on this album- which feel much
like a celebration of a kind of uni cation of mind which then is allowed to di use
back out into open space and delicate percussions… the void from whence it
came. 



Why a morphological freedom? In sound? Presumably, to lead to a di erent
mode of agency, of mind.

Ed Keller, on TORSION
for Alvaro Domene
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