TETSUO FURUDATE / ZBIGNIEW KARKOWSKI
World as Will II
(23five - 23five003) CD $12.00 (Out-of-stock)
While the influence of Karkowski’s tutelage under Xenakis is obvious in World As Will II's orchestral clusters and general density, it is dwarfed by elements solely serving that notoriously untrustworthy god, the human ego. Xenakis’s opaque masses of sound grow from the interaction of mindless external forces, beyond the realm of emotions and personality. Furudate and Karkowski, though, dwell in glorification of the self. Whatever one may think of Schopenhauer's writings, from which this album takes its philosophical cues, it's hard to deny the CD’s exceptional belligerence, courtesy of myriad bombastic tokens -- martial drums, ominous orchestral drones, primal screams with echo, Wagner samples.