BLACK, WHITE & GREY

When is the one-man project of Norwegian multi-instrumentalist Lars Pedersen, a musician who has also spent time in some punk outfits as well as the Beatlesesque retro band The Last James. This is the only When album I've heard, but it is a hard-core Avant/RIO album collaboration with Henry Cow's Chris Cutler, released on Cutler's Recommended label. Apocalyptic soundscapes, musique concrete, and highly orchestrated craziness are on display here. All created pretty much by Pedersen alone, building these crazy beasts from the ground up. Chris Cutler provides the "texts", but really this is Pedersen's show all the way.

The first track is the 20 minute monster "Grey (Part One)". It goes through several movements, but the overriding mood is of stormy chaos and violence. Huge thunderous explosions and machine gun fire with long disquieting interludes of quasi-orchestral music, spoken word fragments, noise, and occasional moments of gentle beauty. It's very colorful stuff, not rock at all, but sure to please fans of the avant garde side of prog.

The album continues with a few shorter tracks, a bit lighter in mood and more homogenous in construction. The seven minute "Heart of Rage" begins with piano and dulcimer, introducing an almost folky melody and lead vocal. The song gets progressively darker as it goes, including a long interlude led by macabre church bells and eerie echoed singing. Dramatic strings (or string sounds, anyway. They do sound quite authentic for what is probably sampled). But then the song just kind of ends. Unless the next track offers more clues -- "From White to White" focuses on distant Gregorian chanting, with some spoken word on top and stately orchestral background, for just under three minutes. "Fellini's Hat" takes us suddenly into more carnival-like territory, a booming rhythm with cacophanous horn-like sounds trumpeting over the top. Finally, there is "Grey (Part Two)", which closes the original album with a nine-minute continuation of the doomy madness of the first part, and it's just as good.

The CD version contains yet another piece, and a 22 minute long one at that. "Death in the Blue Lake" is another multi-headed beast of a piece, similar in mood to "Grey" but a bit less interested in the sound effects and shock aspect of the latter. It reminds me quite a bit of some of the more moody moments on Henry Cow's albums at first. But it doesn't stop there -- more full-on scary orchestral moments pass, building and releasing tension for the remainder of the piece. But in general, this is a more pensive track.

Overall, an excellent work that should please the Avant/RIO contingent to no end. I shy away from five stars only because after about 5 full listens I still don't really feel a whole lot of coherence in these pieces -- there's a bunch of cool weird sections followed by another bunch of cool weird sections, but I'm not convinced it's really going anywhere, if you catch my drift. Still, this one should do just nicely if you want to scare your mom. A strong four.

Soundscape music like this is so intriguing to me. WHEN is the one man project of Lars Pedersen out of Norway. The man is incredibly gifted at creating these sound collages, mixing them with structured themes at times, and headphone music all the way. I feel that his first two albums released in the second half of the 80's are his high water mark. Actually those first four albums("Black, White & Grey" being the third of those) are important documents as it were of this style of music. His first two are classics, while this one is a step down from those in my opinion. I like how the album covers of his first four have a common theme.

Chris Cutler(HENRY COW and RER Records) and Lars had a chance meeting in the late eighties. This was followed with Cutler helping Lars out here on this 1991 release with the texts of this album, he wrote them. The original album here was released in Norway only by the Tatra Productions label. The next year in 1992 Cutler and his RER Records gave this a world-wide release but not without doing some changes first. Like changing the cover art and adding a bunch of pictures in the thick 14 page liner notes. The pictures are mostly black and white, and of architecture. They also added as a bonus track the over 20 minute title track from the previous record "Death In A Blue Lake".

It's interesting that the next record that Lars recorded from 1992 is back to him alone, and back on Tatra Productions. It says this on the back cover "Black White and Grey has something to do with the destruction of the earth". The explosives and gun fire did sound like WWIII at times I must say. Very apocalyptic sounding. There's also a "thanks" in the liner notes to the Ogle Choir who are on the short track "From White To White". The original recordings for this began in 1988 at Cluster Studios, then finished in 1990 at the Waterfall studio.

The album opens with the 20 minute "Grey(Part I)" and the sounds to start are so faint, I'm tempted to turn it up, but I'm not falling for that again. It's wind as the sound increases. Around 1 1/2 minutes organ and apocalyptic sounds take over. A calm before another rainfall of terror hits us. Sirens around 4 1/2 minutes along with industrial sounds. Vibes and atmosphere 2 minutes later then samples are added before more explosive sounds and gun fire. Beats and a rhythm surprisingly after 10 minutes. And were only half way through! Another calm with piano this time then more apocalyptic sounds then another calm. Silence before 13 minutes. It's over? The world I mean. No, faint sounds arrive before we get this chaotic ending.

The album ends with "Grey(Part II)" at 9 minutes. I like that atmospheric intro and the bassoon after a minute before samples arrive making it interesting. Some haunting sounds then suddenly it kicks into gear. Spoken words before this album ends with atmosphere. Now it's over. A low 4 stars as I feel this is a step down from his first two recordings. Still, this is just so interesting, and for sure headphone music.