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Shackle is Anne LaBerge on flute and electronics and Robert van Heumen on laptop. Their aim is to explicity and subtly exploit shackling in both concept and material.
This extraordinarily inventive duo has a way of making music all their own. At the heart of their duo is a self-designed, cutting-edge digital cueing system which operates as a sometimes visible third member. Both prodding and reactive, the Shackle system suggests musical directions and textures to these two highly gifted performers, opening up a fascinating array of sonic choices for La Berge and Van Heumen to both play with and against. Shackle’s performances explode the line between improvisation without borders and tightly controlled forms that are both playful and daring. Improvisation and structure coincide effortlessly in Shackle’s music. With uncanny transitions that turn on a dime and long, spun-out tapestries of sound, Shackle’s music works on two levels at once: full of delightful discoveries that can happen in the blink of an eye, La Berge and Van Heumen savour the possibilities that those discoveries offer up. Working with a computerized communicationsystem that proposes various compositional elements to each player, they can then choose whether or not to cooperate with the proposed material. Proposals also involve aspects of restriction, either in soundmaterial, timing, dynamics or other musical parameters. Musical sections are visually presented to the audience by video snippets occuring regularly or irregularly throughout the performance. "Shackle was a perfect, 'nordic' musical contrast. The duo mixed Anne LaBerge`s delicately chosen, beautifully restraint articulations and timbres from across the flute family gamut, with Robert van Heumen`s live processing and interspersing of his trademark, hard edge, and quite unique brand of sample scratching. While i find the latter technique at times somewhat angular, it contrasted here extremely well with the mysterious shimmering quality of much of the music the duo knew to invent. Anne`s striking pose and Robert's introvert concentration didn't disguise the fact that they were constantly listening and finely tuned to one another." Daniel Schorno - review of the concert at STEIM`s Micro Jamboree Dec 14 2006 | ||||||
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