Press reviews:

Vital Weekly
Already in 2012 Will Long, also known as Celer, and Dirk Serries, also known as Vidna Obmana and Fear Falls Burning (to name a few of his projects) started exchanging some sound material, but it took a full year before Long even had an idea what to do with Serries’ guitar sounds. Long explains this on the press text, but me no understand what he did: “Using the original track that I sent Dirk at the very beginning as a sound source, I shaped it exactly like Dirk’s responding source file – the musical colour and frequencies were the same, but the effects and enveloping was triggered by the waves of Dirk’s track.[…] It may be hard to hear the two sides, but it’s really built by the background curtain, and even if you can’t hear it’s place, it’s definitely there. Where does one thing begin and another end? Maybe you can hear it?” It may explain the title of the release though. Both of these two pieces work with Serries long sustaining guitar drones sounds, with slowly envelop, overlaid, I guess, with Celer’s own drones, perhaps created by a transformation or two of the original Serries input, but then more stretched out, adding more variations of the same colour to the whole. ‘Above/Below’ is the darker side of the moon here, while the second piece, not surprisingly called ‘Below/Above’, represents the lighter side of the coin. This is music that absolute weightless space stuff, transporting the listener through an endless black universe and the notes of Serries, especially on ‘Below/Above’ are like little stars at the firmament. Maybe I just wrote that because of the impending Christmas season? I have no idea; it is one of those beautiful shiny winter days and Celer and Dirk Serries provide the perfect soundtrack for such a day, in which everything seems to slow down.

African Paper
Bei einem Dauerproduzenten wie Will Long alias Celer, der keine Pause zu kennen scheint und in den letzten Jahren dutzende Releases herausgehauen hat, bleibt es nicht aus, dass sich der eine oder andere Entwurf als Sackgasse erweist, auf die der eigene kreative Fluss mit einer Blockade reagiert. Manchmal mag der Papierkorb der beste Freund des Schaffenden sein, doch wenn da Gefühl nicht losbekommt, dass in einem scheinbar unbearbeitbaren Fragment doch noch Potenzial steckt, liegen zwei Lösungen nahe: Die eine wäre, etwas Zeit verstreichen zu lassen und ich dem Material später erneut zu nähern, mit er entsprechenden Distanz, die es wie das Werk einer anderen Person erscheinen lässt. Die andere wäre, auf Kollaboration zu setzen und Kollegen mit der Dekonstruktion des Stoffes zu betrauen.

Long hat sich im Entstehungsprozess der hier vorliegenden Aufnahmen für beides entschieden, und so entstand über einen Zeitraum von rund vier Jahren im Austausch mit Dirk Serries (Fear Falls Burning, Vidna Obmana), den er zunächst ohne viel Hoffnung anleierte, doch noch ein ganzes Album, dem man eines schon mal bescheinigen darf: Es wirkt derart homogen und harmonisch, dass man ihm die verquere Vorgeschichte kaum anmerkt.

„Background Curtain“ ist ein sanft dröhnendes und angenehm schwermütiges Ambientalbum geworden, dessen lange und weit ausgreifende Soundscapes auch durch die ungewöhnliche Färbung der Sound an Substanz gewinnt. Gerade in ruhigeren Momenten der gemach an und abschwellenden Klänge blitzt immer mal die (trügerische?) Illusion ortbarer Instrumente auf, eine Schiffssirene, eine Klarinette, das Läuten einer Kirchenglocke oder raue Gitarren. Doch die Klangquellen sind nicht so relevant, erfüllen solche Momente doch vor allem die Funktion, den Hörer nicht vollends der Einlullung preiszugeben. Ist die Aufmerksamkeit erst entsprechend geschärft, dann ist der düstere Untergrund aus atonalem Rauschen und Rumoren immer deutlicher zu hören, ebenso die kleinen exaltierten Synthietupfer, die vereinzelt aus dem melierten Soundgemisch herausspringen.

Beide Musiker haben schon Ereignisreicheres produziert als die beiden ausladenden Tracks, die dem ursprünglichen Material eine jeweils andere Gestalt verpassen. Wer also im Ambien Spannung (oder auch so etwas wie Berieselung) sucht, der soltle sich zuvor die im Netz verfügbaren Auszüge anhören. Bestens bedient werden Freunde der subtilen Regression und alle, die mit Vorliebe Verstecktes aufspüren.

Darkroom
La polacca Zoharum produce nell’ottobre dello scorso anno questa collaborazione tra due mostri sacri della musica ambient e dello sperimentalismo quali Dirk Serries e Will Long aka Celer. La storia di questo progetto collaborativo confluito poi in “Background Courtain” comincia nel 2012, quando, dopo alcuni scambi di LP tra i due, Long invia una lunga traccia che riuniva dei pezzi sonori da lui prodotti a Serries, trovandoli inutilizzabili e sperando che l’artista belga riuscisse a ricavarne qualcosa. Tempo dopo, Serries invia a Long una serie di tracce ispirate dall’ascolto di quel nastro, ed usando come base la traccia definita ostica ed inutilizzabile all’inizio, i pezzi di Serries vengono avviluppati ad essa creando appunto questo album formato da due lunghe suite ambient sospese ed impalpabili, soundscapes da altri mondi dalla presenza allungata e riverberata. Disponibile in edizione strettamente limitata a 300 esemplari in digipak a 3 pannelli, con artwork dall’effetto vintage – molto inerente al contenuto sonoro – creato da Rudger Zuydervelt (Machinefabriek) e basato su una foto dello stesso Will Long.

The Sound Projector
On Background Curtain (ZOHARUM ZOHAR 129-2), we have a collaboration between Celer and Dirk Serries. Celer, i.e. the American Will Long, is familiar for his minimal ambient music which can be quite beautiful on occasion, and his Inside The Head of Gods was judged by us as a “masterpiece of understatement”. Belgian droner Dirk Serries used to be Vidna Obmama throughout the 1980s, and also recorded as Fear Falls Burning, a project where the weapon of choice was a guitar.

I suppose both players have an interest in long tones, subtle shifts of timbre, and a creative approach which involves much processing work. Processing is certainly the hallmark of Background Curtain. In fact it seems to be the basis for the entire piece. Celer sent a tape to Dirk one fine day in 2012. The time-stretched segment of collaged work was, to its creator, “puzzling and unworkable”. Yet Dirk came through and rallied like a Hessian, and returned something to Celer. At this point the tape-trading story becomes unclear to me, but it seems that Dirk didn’t actually rework the original unworkable tapes, and instead produced something entirely new while he was listening to them. Another year goes by, and Celer (clearly not a man to rush into things) has the brilliant idea of mashing up the new Dirk Serries music with his original source recording. He got to work behind his multi-tasking processor desk. “The musical colour and frequencies were the same,” he assures us, “but the effects and enveloping were triggered by the waves of Dirk’s track”. This feels a little sketchy, but I think I get the general idea, and I can understand why creators would wish to protect their working methods by shrouding them in vagueness and ambiguity.

Two long pieces ended up being pressed on the present CD as a result of this long and drawn-out creative process – ‘Above/Below’ and ‘Below/Above’. The first one is a slow-moving blanket of swaddling ambient sounds where everything sounds processed and unrecognisable, yet not to the point of becoming saccharine goo. On the second piece, it’s just about possible to discern some guitar notes, keening their forlorn cries like slowed-down seagull effects from a Bill Nelson performance. However, there’s no real point in trying to unbake this sonic pie; the point that Celer wishes we would concentrate on is the presence of what he calls the “background curtain”, presumably referring to his original “puzzling and unworkable” source material. I think he’s right to call it a curtain; it’s certainly not rigid enough to be called a spine or backbone. “Even if you can’t hear its place, it’s definitely there,” he assures us. “Maybe you can hear it?” From 23rd November 2017.