Ulrich Lask: Jazz of the Unnecessary

Ulrich Lask - Geometry 1001 [Removed]
Ulrich Lask - Geometry 1003 [Removed]
From Indéan Poa: CMP CD 62 [Buy Here]

Ulrich P. Lask - saxophonist and electronic musician, sound artist and composer of film scores, German nationality. Based variously in Aachen, Paris and Arjeplog in Finland. He apparently recorded two albums for ECM in the 1980s, but they are now out of print. A new album, "Polar Circles" is due out in April this year on Nabel Records. That's just about all I know, and I can't even find an album cover image of Indéan Poa on the web. If anyone can supply some more information, I would be grateful!

I picked this disc up in a bargain bin in Auckland about 8 years ago. (I'd love to know how it got to NZ - possibly it was a reviewer's copy that got dumped?). According to the only information about the album that I can find, (in German), the compositions were constructed from lots of separate sound fragments recorded between 1985 and 1995.

UPDATE: thanks to jvgaspar who has kindly found the image of the album cover online!

I like the way that Lask makes a feature of this cut/paste method: the listener is always conscious of the assemblage, layering and looping of sounds, and the interplay of composition, improvisation and dumb luck. Harmolodic dub? There's certainly a trace of Ornette Coleman in Lask's own playing. To me, (particularly on Geometry 1001), the musical elements sound vulnerable, as if they will disappear back into silence at any moment. It almost seems we are fortunate to hear any of it at all.