In 2017 I had the privilege of seeing Toshiji Mikawa play a rare solo set in the back room of a tiny record store (you can watch a high-quality recording filmed by John Wiese here). Though at the time I was still very new to noise, and therefore even more clueless about gear and technique than I am now, with the help of a later google search I was able to figure out that the unique device featured heavily in Mikawa’s performance was the Cocoquantus. Due to said gear cluelessness I am unqualified to say definitively whether or not it is technically a “wooden synth,” but regardless, the visual of the object itself and the way it’s manipulated do evoke the nature of the materials T. Jervell is working with on the less caustic but no less captivating 2nd Two: sinewy and rough-edged but also playful and colorful. This new tape leans into the more abstract elements of Jervell’s debut—the often-sublime and always-unpredictable (K) En sommerdag i Kroken (Ruter)—whittling down the artist’s interest in complex textures with essences both digital and organic to a brief, focused study in the vein of Daniel Iván Bruno similarly superb Brazo. Intricately woven hybrids of direct improvisation and composition via edit, the seven tracks (with titles that are somehow at once straightforward and surreal) each glimmer with a unique varnish, from the freshly squeezed splinter-bubbles of “Blue Boy Sprott…” and extraterrestrial-sounding contortions of “A Boy in Love with Lyra…” to the plucky ambience of “Planks of Wood…” and “Presets…” Beneath the thorny, deeply experimental bark layer of 2nd Two is a bright and joyous sapwood shining with life, and beneath that a stocky, steadfast heart.
Noise Not Music 