Open Form For Society II is the third instalment in German drummer Christian Lillinger’s proposal to reform social discourse. (Live albums don’t get numbers, thus the II.) OFSS isn’t just a body of music; it’s a representation of a process that’s intended to model the application of critical thinking and structured, rational discussion to creative work. If you look around the world, there’s plenty of evidence that open societies are on the ropes; this music is a scientific, skill-based punch back.
So, how does such a process work, and what does it yield? Lillinger starts by writing some genre-compacting music for a nine-strong, international assemblage of musicians. While he’s best known as a jazz drummer, he combines his fleet phrasing with a post-hip-hop take on repetition, then blends that with a chamber-music-derived emphasis on tuned-in cohesion. Next, the players perform it, improvise on it, discuss it, adjust it and play it some more before leaving it in the hands of Lillinger and his engineers, who further process it in the course of putting a record together.
The group’s unusual configuration—five mostly acoustic keyboards, three basses, one vibraphone and Lillinger on drums and electronics—yields a sound palette that’s simultaneously saturated and confined. The keys and mallets are carefully layered and closely braided so that it rarely sounds like this many people are playing together, but each phrase is packed with sonic complexity. The music pulls you in, then sets your attention tumbling into its twists and turns. It’s as though your inner ear has slipped and fallen on an Escher staircase. [Plaist]
—Bill Meyer
