the scaffold by manja ristić & murmer

Published by Unfathomless, March 2024.
unfathomless.bandcamp.com


The first person to contact me for collaboration back in the Spring of 2020 was Patrick. I was living with a sensitive child and a big dog in a small rented apartment in Belgrade when ridiculously harsh and oppressive curfews were forced upon us by the Serbian government. It is really hard to explain to anyone the situation I found myself in without acknowledging that it sounds like a dystopian SF. Only a few details to picture the reality – I had to risk getting arrested for taking the dog for a walk during the times when the kid was firmly asleep.

The invitation from Patrick came as a ray of light from a parallel universe that still had a meaningful socio-cultural framework. Not for long, though, as the pandemic was progressing, we all witnessed how deeply troubled and morally unrooted „contemporary“ societies are, from nation to nation, revealing their pathologies, systematic cracks, and hidden corruptive mechanisms. My „in-situ“ recordings were reduced to a windowsill, toys and household objects, kitchen and bathroom pipes and utilities, and sound voyeurism of the neighbours I never even met in the poorly soundproofed building.

Patrick sent me a file of a singing scaffold. I listened to it for days, almost as a therapy sequence. Imagining what sort of scaffold our society would need to rebuild this mess, or at least to stop the structure from crumbling completely. A first exchange of files and initial work bounced between Belgrade, Serbia, and Metsküla, Estonia, in Spring 2020. In June, I left Belgrade, and as it happens, I never went back.

The pandemic year(s) were progressing slowly, revealing their bizarre madness from month to month, so our work on the Scaffold piece was slow. As I recollect, it would take a year to start working on Antenna, another marvellous field recording coming my way from Estonia. At the time, I already started moving around and recording other environments than only Korčula island's micro world. During the summer, I went to Dubrovnik, which was a terrible mistake. The tourist season was raging as if there were no pandemic at all; people from all around the world were clogging the narrow streets. I had a panic attack from not being able to walk without someone breathing into my face or neck. I found refuge in the church next to the Pile gate. It was such a contrast to find myself in an empty and silence-packed church, and then the magic happened. A group of priests started practising Gregorian chants behind the altar. The experience was mesmerizing, and today I am deeply grateful for it.

To find solace in the midst of turmoil, to sense the spiritual resonance of the deep past in the heart of contemporary hustle, was truly rewarding.
But most of all, the friendship in sound and constant appreciation for mutual efforts and work is what is embroidered in this collaboration. Although parenting and demanding everyday flow occurs as a slow pace of working, I am certain that we have only just started our collaborative journey.

(Manja Ristić, December 2023)

~

I first encountered Manja's work in 2017, in the same way I encounter most artists for the first time, through the constant search for sounds for Framework Radio. I was immediately drawn to the way she approached sound, both actively and passively, and the way she constructed her compositions. As I explored each successive release (she is much more prolific than I could ever be), I began to develop not only an appreciation but an affinity for her methods – I couldn't help but feel that we similarly relate to sound, and I felt a deep understanding for her compositional choices.

It wasn't until three years later, though, that I finally approached her about potentially collaborating. I'd never worked with someone whom I'd never physically met before, but I really wanted to hear what our sounds would sound like if they joined forces.

Our collaboration developed at a similarly slow pace to its product. In March 2020, I was bubbling during the first COVID-19 lockdown in a small blockhouse apartment just outside Viljandi with my own family of four, my in-laws, and my wife's uncle (a domestic age range of 1 to 85). I tended, even in the cold weather, to use the apartment's small balcony overlooking a wooded hillside as a retreat from the bustle inside, but at this point the balcony's view had been blocked by scaffolding that had been put up as the building's roof was replaced. When the winter wind blew, the scaffold pipes would sing, and finally, after several failed attempts, I was able to spend one late evening capturing that sound. A partially-composed version of this scaffold recording was the first sound I sent Manja, and the ball began rolling very slowly, back and forth, until our first work was completed just over a year later.

Our second piece began with two recordings from my archive – one of rain dripping on the spines of an old television antenna outside the living room window of my family's old home in Põlgaste, Estonia, and another of “played” empty oil tanks near the sea not too far from Riga, Latvia. And a year and a half later (one of my favorite Estonian words is poolteist, which means one and a half; literally “half of the second”), two and a half years after that scaffolding was recorded during the first lockdown, our first set of collaborative works was complete.

A third piece is in formation now – but it is still a germ, a tiny seed sitting in the back of both of our minds; I think we know it will sprout and root at some point, but the way our working method has developed is to never rush movement, to allow steps to be taken when they are ready to be taken, and to sit back and witness the blossom when it comes.

(Patrick Tubin McGinley, December 2023)

Born in Belgrade 1979. Violinist, sound artist, curator and researcher mostly active in the field of electro-acoustics, instrumental improvisation & experimental sound related arts. Graduated at the Belgrade Music Academy, then gained PGDip at the Royal College of Music, London.

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