Composer, Drummer and Percussionist Ken Serio hails from the New York area and his 4th cd DRUMSPEAK is something exciting, different and new.The title is a play on words from George Orwell’s 1984 novel in which The word NEWSPEAK is a fictitious new language limiting thoughts as we know it, DRUMSPEAK hopefully stands for freeing your mind and is the exact opposite of NEWSPEAK.
Being more recently influenced by such composers as Steve Reich, Terry Riley, John Luther Adams, Fred Frith and Evelyn Glennie,as well as traditional Burundi music, Ken composed this contemporary 4 part work and played all instruments. There’s UDU Drums ,Kalimbas and Djembie from Africa, Gongs, cymbals, glasses of various thickness, rainsticks, guitars, mallet instruments, water jugs and even a coffee grinder to add to the many textures and themes of Drumspeak.
At first glance, you would think that a 4 movement, CD-length composition entitled Drumspeak would be inspired by Steve Reich’s Drumming. Well, of course it is. Any jackass can see that (to quote Brahms). Ken Serio, the composer and performer of all the parts, has created a smaller-scale one-man Drumming. Mr. Serio’s language seems more loop-based as opposed to process-based but I don’t think that is the real point of the piece. Each of the four parts has a more distinct character than the four parts of Drumming. There is a lot of pulsing and grooving but there is also a hefty amount of space, silence, and ambience. Those characters throughout the four parts of Drumspeak is what maintained my interest in this CD and Mr. Serio’s performances are quite compelling.
Part I starts with a simple groove and, right around the time you think “When is this going to change?” it changes. Mr. Serio maintains a good pacing of events so that additions and shifts of the texture happen at just about the right time. Part II starts similarly to Part I, making you think that this is all one of the same piece. Quickly, though, new and different sounds emerge that put a more relaxed and ambient sound world around the cymbal drone.
Part III, even more ambient and nebulous than Part II, was my favorite track. I think that this piece stands well on its own and could easily be performed by percussion ensembles without committing to the whole hour of Drumspeak. The various percussion timbres have their own sense of space and pacing which is rather refreshing from the solid beats of the previous two parts.
Part IV picks up the pulse again and similar techniques to the first part. A ceramic drum emerges from the texture and then continues as a freeform solo for, I’m not kidding, seven and a half minutes (out of the 15 minute total length). I must admit that the ceramic drum’s entrance and the beginning of the solo had me quite engaged. I wasn’t sure how I had gotten to this point but I was glad that I was there. As it wore on, I found myself unable to follow the stream-of-consciousness solo. Others might stay engaged throughout, but I found myself yearning for the next entrance of the ensemble. Once the ensemble did come in it quickly turned into another stream-of-consciousness drum kit solo. I wasn’t sold on the musical motivation for such a solo to end the work. I like the juxtaposition of groove vs. ambient within one movement, but I think this idea needs more time to play out.
I think that the balance/imbalance between pulsed repetition and free-form ambience is a vital part of Drumspeak and Mr. Serio balances these ideas across movements rather well. I find the juxtaposition of these elements to be refreshing and engaging.
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