Björgúlfsson / Pimmon / Thorsson: Still Important Somekind ...

Full length title being Still Important Somekind Not Normally Seen (Always Not Unfinished), this CD was publiched by Crónica, a Portugese label in 2004.
More often than not, collaborative live laptop improvisations like this one turn out to be bad, and especially when you hear them on disc. Maybe because though the computer allows unprecedented freedom in generating the sounds, on the other hand it destroys the frames within which musicians of (more) traditional instruments can improvise together.
Two main features I often miss from collaborative laptop improvs: a sense of real and delicate communication between the musicians; and a sense of overall structure or aim. Most of the time you can hear only the most basic elements of structuring: layering, raising the tension, counterpoints, radical switches (and perhaps that's all); but these work only on the small scale, and on the whole, most of the music seems to be a shapeless, aimless mass. I don't say it's out of intrinsic necessity; I guess it's only a lack of tradition; and I don't say that there are not exceptions, but I guess it's a common experience between lovers of experimental music that live collaborations of two (or more) artist you really like turn out to be boring and disappointing.
Well, the Björgúlfsson/Pimmon/Thorsson album is also formless and aimless, but its greatest merit is that it can turn this quality to be an advantage; maybe I could also say it reflects on its formlessness. They do it by introducing some subtle, hardly perceptible, even a little bit perverse kind of humour. Both the Islandic artist (one, Helgi Thorsson being a current member of Stilluppsteypa, other, Heimir Björgúlfsson is now an ex-member) and Pimmon from Australia are known for both of their sense of abstraction and humour; and these two, otherwise rarely combined features work here as well.
The sounds used are pretty much from the realm of "abstract" music: bleeps, drones, charming low and disorientating high frequencies, alienated and twisted rhythms, sometimes a bit of ambient textures. What is exciting is not the sounds themselves but the structure, how they are put together. Upon close listening, I find playfulness, even a little bit of teasing each other; instead of using the usual "well, I'll put these sounds besides yours as they sound good together"-method, I rather hear "I'll put these sounds in as they absolutely at odds with yours", and some playful "hey, here are these sounds - what can you do about them?"
And this is very funny and exciting - if you hear it, if you are "trained" enough to be able to listen to structures, not being distracted by the abstractness of the sounds themselves. And if you are not distracted by the parts which are not as good as others, as they inevitably exist here. And well, maybe this interpretation is also triggered by the cover images drawn by Thorsson: they're grotesque, charming and a bit frightening.
And maybe besides the three musicians, Robert Hampson bears a great responsibility for this result, as he edited the live recordings made at Earational Fest, 2002.
(This review is a translation of the one I wrote in Hungarian for Ultrahang.)