Robert Vincs - Devic Kingdom

XCD-059 | CD | 2007 | Release Information

With a remarkable music history, stretching back to the birth of the Fairlight CMI when the sounds he created were used by the likes of Thomas Dolby and Kate Bush, Robert Vincs has continued to evolve as a musician and composer.  Devic Kingdom is a seductive fusion of virtuosic saxophone playing, soaring melody, texture and interactive electronics. 

The story of Devic Kingdom begins in 1983 when Robert first encountered the Fairlight Computer Musical Instrument.  Robert had this crazy idea that you might be able to program this instrument to ‘think’ like a jazz musician and in 1987 Robert won the prestigious ‘B.P. Quiet Achiever award’ for his research into music and artificial intelligence.  Ironically this work led to Robert’s interest in the nature of human consciousness particularly the ‘transcendent’ experience and the music of ancient cultures.

Robert Vincs is one of Australia’s most distinctive musicians.  Devic Kingdom draws upon a remarkable sonic palette and his talent as a saxophone player extraordinaire. The majority of the album was recorded on location as single takes at various ‘sacred sites’ scattered throughout the Victorian highlands.  This was done to capture the serene energy of the land and the natural reverberation of the countryside.

Devic Kingdom also includes a variety of other wind instruments, including the Korean Bone Flute and the unique Greenwood leather horn. Scott Dunbabbin contributes to the diversity of sonic texture with his self-designed SDIII Six String upright Bass.  The Fairlight CMI continues to play a part in Robert’s musical expression, especially considering it is still the only digital instrument that can manipulate the amplitude and duration of 32 harmonics in 32 wave segments, by interactively processing selected tracks.  It brings a strangely organic sound and a primitive digital ambience to the music as a whole.

Devic Kingdom is the logical expression of Robert’s diverse influences; culminating in a unique fusion of music genres. Dense interplays of sonic timbre, melody, asynchronous rhythm and the twin flames of human and machine harmonize within the sacred site.  The post-Coltrane era spawns no end of possibilities for new-music in which Devic Kingdom remains accessible and, in moments, exquisitely beautiful.

XCD-059 | CD | 2007 | Audio Samples

Audio samples are available as lofi (64kbps) streaming mp3s.

1. Devic Kingdom
2. Avatar
3. Elemental String
4. Sanatorium Lake
5. Mantra
6. Calabi-Yau
7. Vision Quest
8. Helix
9. Body Without Organs
10. Light Bomb
11. A Little Hadron Collider
12. The Trainman
13. Saraghina
14. Not far from Hanging Rock (for BB)
15. Playing with Tears

XCD-059 | CD | 2007 | Reviews

Chain DLK

By Andrea Ferraris

Here we’ve another chapter of Extreme Antripodean series and a really good one indeed but quite different from Vincs. The lowest common denominator is still jazz music, but in some ways this work sticks much more to the context, if to you that implies “it’s canonic jazz”, you’re on the wrong lane. Discerning the main elements of this improvisational effort is not that difficult since you get a well proportioned blend of “free jazz” plus contemporary classic music and the alchemy is good due to the fact Hannaford keeps far from easy mannerism and works hard on defining his own style.

The first aspect you notice after many listenings is that the interaction of Hannaford with the rhythmic section is really equilibrated, which is one of the most interesting quality of this cd, above all if you consider the majority of the material comes out of improvisations. The aforementioned sentence is referred to the fact nowadays working in an idiomatic way (but let’s be honest…that also happens in “non idiomatic” impros) brings forth the risk to fall in anonymity, if this problem has to do with the hypertrophy of our recent musical history or with the fact in a massified society like this it’s hard to have an identity, I sincerely don’t know.

By the way, Hannaford has built accurately his own personality and has chosen carefully the other team-players, that’s why he collected an interesting number of “sketches”. “The Garden Of Forking Paths” made me think the afroamerican elements/root of jazz sometimes gets dissolved in the style (culture?) of many white musicians, not that you won’t find Monk, Mingus or Coleman traces in the genes of some of these players, but everything is “colder”, “more suspended”, subdued in a way that characterizes many white (and usually Europeans…unlike Hannaford) musicians. If it was not for the fact it’s quite far from contemporary compositions, I’m sure people like Berio, Feldman or even Cage would have loved this musicians’ taste for dissonance, but even if the abstraction is somehow similar, the speed is different alas let me say he could be “a swinging contemporary piano player listened at 45 rpm”, does it make any sense? (I think so, but just if you consider the solo tracks like “All booze”).

This pianist makes you believe there’s still hope for the future…nay for the present of improvisation while half of the jazz world survives with one foot in the grave.

XCD-059 | CD | 2007 | Liner Notes

The music of Devic Kingdom tracks resonances between ancient consciousness and the emergent physics of string theory. At the core of each of these belief systems is the idea that matter arises through vibration. Vibration, driven by intention, creates the world that we know.

1: Devic Kingdom 4’32”
2: Avatar 4’08”
3: Elemental String 3’37”
4: Sanatorium Lake 2’31”
5: Mantra 1’44”
6: Calabi-Yau 1’40”
7: Vision Quest 2’36”
8: Helix 2’04”
9: Body Without Organs 3’05”
10: Light Bomb 7’25”
11: A Little Hadron Collider 1’22”
12: The Trainman 3’03”
13: Saraghina 1’42”
14: Not far from Hanging Rock (for BB) 2’18”
15: Playing with Tears 4’40”

All music by Robert Vincs. Total playing time 46’46”

Robert Vincs: Saxello, Tenor Saxophone*, Korean Bone Flute, Garry Greenwood leather horn, voice, interactive electronics, MAX processing.

Scott Dunbabbin: SDIII Six String Upright Bass (track 15)

*Robert Vincs plays the Keilworth SX-90R Tenor Saxophone from ‘The Music Place.’

Recorded at Kandar studios and on location at various sites throughout the Victorian Central Highlands. Recorded, mixed and produced by Robert Vincs.

Mastering: Lachlan Carrick Moose Mastering
Executive Producer: Roger Richards
Photo Credits: Kim Vincs (The Museum of Faces - Gwangju, Gyeonggi Province, Sth. Korea)
Special Thanks to: Kim, Rory, Kobe, Brian, Kenneth, Ash, Scott, Livija, Adolf, Roger & Extreme