Flutter from Cracks by Bendik Giske

The body is important for Giske, not just in the strength and muscle control required to accomplish his mesmerizing circular breathing on the saxophone. It’s also reflected in the tradition of dance he practiced as a child during his split time in Bali and Oslo, and enjoyed as part of an electronic music epiphany in his adopted hometown of Berlin. Body is implied in his sense of queerness, which has helped him create his own sound, blossoming luxuriantly not only on record but also in his striking, embodied performances. As such, in the past Giske has likened his performance to transmuting electronic music through all of his human faults, akin to becoming a machine. With Cracks, he introduces a new set of parameters for the automated processes of his muscle memory to work against.

In a sense, you could call it generative music – a term coined by Brian Eno to describe music made within a set of rules that can constantly evolve within that system. But here the only algorithms at work are responding to Giske’s self-imposed constraints (or parameters) – like the afore-mentioned circular breathing. As a practice, it induces in the player – and perhaps the listener, too – a kind of altered state, more open to discovery, and as a cycle of sound it defies time. This atemporality, or out-of-timeliness, hints at theorist José Muñoz’s notion of “queer time,” which is a chronology wholly other than the default.

Giske cheerfully admits to mining the thought universe of Muñoz – especially his book Cruising Utopia – as inspiration, and the resulting Cracks have a sensual, deeply-felt and lingering beauty with a touch of the superhuman.

Bendik Giske (NO/DE) is an artist and saxophonist using physicality, vulnerability and endurance as his tools of expression. Bendik Giske's third album, produced by Beatrice Dillon, is out June 9th.

bendikgiske.com