Spectreview: Charmaine Lee – KNVF

Released: March 19, 2021

Experimental
(Improvisational)
(Electronic)
(A cappella)
(Noise)

-DODGER BLUE-

Conceptual art thrives not on building new boundaries but on breaking old ones, distorting familiar spaces in ways that amaze and challenge in kind. New York improvisational musician Charmaine Lee does this by playing with the possibilities inherent in the human voice; her 2018 tape, Ggggg, explores that voice in brief, visceral detail. That tape, along with subsequent art pieces, immediately introduced her as a thrilling entity in the NY art scene. Nearly three years later, she’s back with an elevated platform and a debut LP that takes the meat of Ggggg and brings it right to the edge.

I’ll warn you right now: KNVF is not for the sensitive listener. Though it might be just mouth sounds captured by a litany of microphones, it runs the gamut of human expression to an oft-extreme degree. At individual moments it’s hilarious (“Market Slip”), mystifying (“False Gravity”), disgusting (“Bares”), disorienting (“Exuberant Bodies (For Yan Jun)”), ominous (“Residual Pulse”) and outright terrifying (“The Final Futz”), and if you’re not privy to exceedingly high or low frequencies (both of which its two opening songs contain) it may just be migraine-inducing.

Improvisational music tends to lean maddening if you’re not on its wavelength, but for the adventurous soul there’s a goldmine buried underneath all the harshness. Though it’s a much harder listen than Ggggg, it also makes that much more of an impact. Where the former’s tracks allowed for close examinations of their singular sounds, the latter’s contain myriad dimensions that form a summational experience: think fields as opposed to roads. Free from discernible structure, the record’s tracks become artifacts of Lee’s unique expressiveness, whether that’s a series of guttural gurgles and sucks on “Milk” or what sounds suspiciously like urination on “The Final Futz.”

Those electronic additions, despite their abrasiveness, also add a cerebral depth to Lee’s enigmatic uttering. Together, they create a distorted, cyborg-like representation of the artist that could bring to mind conversations about the role of technology in our lives, or the inorganic material currently lining our bodies from years of plastic consumption, or the insidious behaviors that lead others to perceive us as “less than.” KNVF is as deep as you want to go, which makes it good art. Outside of all that, it’s a beast all its own: a series of alien transmissions anchored by a voice that’s defiantly human. Impenetrable as it might appear at first, the intrepid among us will likely be rewarded with an unforgettable experience.

Recommended for raspberries.