Ali Can Puskulcu - Ali Can Puskulcu: Gibberish Shreds (2020)

In his series “Gibberish Shreds,” Turkish-American composer and violinist Ali Can Puskulcu uses fragments of quasi-language in combination with extended techniques on violin and live processing to create hyperactive material that marries a deft sense for building cohesive layered textures with a flair for the absurd. The five works heard here share a vocabulary assembled from granular gestures but are contrasting in other striking ways.

Volume I, which opens the program, is a recording of the live premiere of the piece, and as such is a pure representation of Puskulcu’s mastery over the diverse sounds available from his onstage set up. For the first several minutes of the work, Ali alternates between a torrent of nonsense syllables with cascading downward vocal glissandi and a spatialized chorus of comically disconcerting guttural and snorting sounds. Subsequent sections fixate on swirling loops that are panned around the stereo field and disembodied, creating ethereal pads of sound. While the moment to moment texture often relies on delayed reiterations of introduced material, Puskulcu evades the pitfalls of many layered loop pieces by navigating the larger scale texture through several sections of contrasting levels of density.

Volume II starts similarly, but quickly features a more prominent melodic role for the violin, with vigorous arpeggiated and accordion-like chordal textures subjected to delays. Puskulcu’s approach to text shifts momentarily midway through this volume, with complete words spoken in varying volumes over an unsettling background. The arpeggiated textures of the opening bloom briefly into a tintinnabulating chorus before focusing back on a single, increasingly disfigured violin sound. Processing overwhelms the acoustic sound of the instrument for a dramatic close.