Composer
Evgueni Galperine has spent much of his career as a film composer, working, often with his brother
Sacha, not only in Europe but with such American directors as
Barry Levinson and
Barry Sonnenfeld. With
Theory of Becoming, he turns to abstract composition, and the results are an intriguing mix.
Galperine's cinematic background is clearly audible; the album comprises short (mostly three- to six-minute) cuts that have some kind of more or less programmatic content, but it is quite a bit more economical than his film music, and it includes electronic sounds and sampling to a greater degree. Much of the music is played by
Galperine himself, augmented on various tracks by a trumpet, cello, or voice, but these are not the only acoustic sounds; the sampling aspect is key.
Galperine calls his method an "augmented reality of acoustic instruments, created from recordings made with real and virtual instruments. The numerous transformations the instruments undergo allow me to capture their acoustic nature while also adding techniques and colours impossible to produce in reality."
Galperine's own notes point the listener toward what he had in mind with some of the tracks, and he remains a powerfully representational composer. He is certainly not the only film composer to write independent music, but the mixture here is unique and is highly recommended to those interested in the nexus between film music and the contemporary concert tradition.
ECM provides splendid engineering at the Studio EGP in Paris. ~ James Manheim
