[2] According to one critic, Wall's "releases sound like the most finely crafted audio sculptures, somewhere between the contemporary composition of Lachenmann and the experiments of early laptop musicians of the mid 90s.
"[1] At the age of 40 Wall acquired a Casio FZ-1 – a mono sampler with very little memory – and used this in conjunction with an 8-track reel-to-reel tape recorder to make his first plunderphoninc works, which he released as Fear of Gravity on his own Utterpsalm imprint.
"[3] Writing about Alterstill, The Wire editor, Tony Herrington, described how Wall recontextualises sampled materials "to essay complex aural fictions, conjure vivid, large-cast phantasias, broker impossible (or at least unlikely) conferences and 'collaborations' (…) The tracks on Alterstill conjure moods and atmospheres that are predicated on the knowledge that they will be quickly shattered by an incoming musical event; a minimalist mantra of riffing violins punctuated by operatic whoops and hollers; then suddenly, images of a death metal concert with a free jazz saxophone bleeding in from the wings; a soundfield of unfathomable scrapes and drones, which is punctuated by a brass fanfare and maybe the sound of running water."
For Herrington, the compositions on Alterstill are "episodic, linear, but all the drama occurs in the horizontal, non-linear pile-up of multiple sound files; the layering and recontextualising of disparate sensations and experiences into a vivid hyperreality.
There are passages throughout Fractuur which give the impression of being somehow improvised, if it were possible for several large chamber ensembles, a couple of jazz groups, and the odd electronics manipulator to jam with some kind of clarity or direction!
His is a muscular, energetic music that seems to contradict itself by being perpetually on the verge of doubt and disintegration (...) Even the most minimal of the soundscapes has, for example, an astonishing degree of inbuilt complexity, although it may consist of little more than the endlessly varied colouration, weight and placement of bumps and clicks.
Writing in The Wire, Julian Cowley described the work as follows: "Shrill needle points of sound, whisps and shadows, punctuating clicks, muted thuds and clangs edge to and from that pivotal centre where the keyboard briefly and equivocally asserts itself.
Richard Pinnell interviewed the pairing for The Wire magazine[11] and wrote in a separate review: "While Wall’s anger can be heard in the music, Rodgers’ spoken word parts are equally acerbic.
His words move between a bitterly spat-out stream of angry obscenity-ridden disgust and a carefully worked out and scripted sense of surrealism all wrapped up in a Beckettian verbal sensibility.
The featured musicians were Jörg Widmann (clarinet), Peter Sheppard Skærved (violin) and John Edwards (double bass) and an excerpt from this performance was issued by LMC.