The Guardian - 06.09.2019

Section:GDN 12 PaGe:15 Edition Date:190906 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 5/9/2019 16:25 cYanmaGentaYellowbla

• The Guardian
  Friday 6 September 2019 15

Electronic

Artist Octo Octa

Album Resonant Body

Label T4t Luv Nrg

★★★★☆

For Octo Octa, music

has been a journey

of self-discovery

that’s mirrored

the development

of her own

identity. The electronic music

producer and DJ publicly came

out as trans in 2016 and refers to

prior albums such as Between

Two Selves as a “ coded message ”

for her experiences. Since that

pivotal moment, she’s found

herself embraced by queer scenes

all over , a shift that goes hand-

in-hand with her move away

from live sets and towards DJing,

following a year of heavy touring.

Her dance music baptism came

in the form of drum’n’ bass and

breakcore, where percussive

chaos channelled the same free-

spirited energy she now also fi nds

in house music. All three genres

serve as major infl uences for

her latest album, created in her

New Hampshire cabin home.

Everything on Resonant Body

is rooted in emotion, and Octo

Octa wears her heart on her record

sleeve; she co-runs her label with

one romantic partner and the art

work for the album comes by way

of another. It’s loaded with retro-

rave pumpers such as Spin Girl,

Let’s Activate! , where acid fl avours

shift into a climbing piano house

jam that tempts a third summer

of love. Imminent Spirit Arrival

and Deep Connections both fl aunt

I

gor Levit made his debut on disc in 2013 with

Beethoven sonatas , and not just any group of

sonatas, but the fi nal fi ve, Opp 101, 106, 109, 110

and 111, which rank among the greatest works

ever composed for the piano. A startlingly self-

confi dent way in which to launch a recording

career, Levit followed it up, two years later, with the

release of his account of Beethoven’s monumental

Diabelli Variations , as part of a set that also included

Bach’s Goldberg Variations and Frederic Rzewski’s

Variations on The People United Will Never Be Defeated!

Levit has only now completed his cycle of the sonatas,

with the original 2013 performances rereleased alongside

recordings of the other 27 made between the end of 2017

and the beginning of this year.

Though three recording locations – Ha nover,

Neumarkt and Berlin – were used across the cycle, the

piano sound is wonderfully consistent throughout and

conveys every gradation of Levit’s pearly sound world.

His original set of the last fi ve sonatas was remarkable,

almost mature beyond his years , so that in one sense

it’s not at all surprising that he has now chosen to retain

those performances as part of the complete set. But

there does seem to be a distinct diff erence of approach

between the deeply considered, thoughtful 2013

accounts and some of what one hears in his treatment

of the earlier sonatas, where tempi seem more extreme,

and the music is given less space to breathe. Some

movements, especially of middle-period sonatas, are

taken so fast that they become almost meaningless. The

fi nal Allegro vivace of the little F sharp major sonata

Op 78, for instance, is turned into a caricature, instead

of the witty throwaway surely intended , while however

beautifully he fl oats the opening theme of the last

movement of the Waldstein Sonata Op 53, it seems only a

preparation for a hell-for-leather coda, much as the fi nale

of Les Adieux Op 81a is taken just too fast to really make

its point. The clarity of the playing at such speeds is often

dazzling; it’s the musical sense that is lost.

The best of Levit’s performances, then, are certainly

outstanding – returning to the fi ve late sonatas, some

years after last listening , they stand up very well – but a

bit too much of the rest seems to try far too hard to create

an eff ect, or to search for a new approach. As a whole for

consistency it does not match what’s perhaps the fi nest

of recent versions, András Schiff ’s live performances

for ECM , or any of the established classic sets – Claudio

Arrau ’s (now on Decca), Daniel Barenboim ’s fi rst cycle

from the 1960s (Warner) or Emil Gilels ’ frustratingly

incomplete one for Deutsche Grammophon.

Andrew Clements

Classical

album of

the week

Artist Igor Levit

Album Beethoven Complete

Piano Sonatas

Label Sony Classical, nine CDs

★★★★☆

Dazzling Beethoven

at breakneck speed

Reviews Music

the sort of crunching breaks and

supple synths that soundtracked

1990s video games, while the raw

drums of Ecstatic Beat have much

in the way of drum’n’bass pioneers

Metalheadz about them. But it’s in

the nature-driven tranquillity of sole

ambient cut My Body Is Powerful

and the affi rming vocal samples

on spiralling single Can You See

Me? where Octo Octa manifests the

record’s intent, championing and

validating her community. In this

year of great tensions, music has

rarely looked so upbeat.

Tayyab Amin

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