Evgueni Galperine
Theory of Becoming

Evgueni Galperine electronics, sampling
Sergei Nakariakov trumpet
Sébastien Hurtaud violoncello
Maria Vasyukova voice
Recorded 2021/21, Studio EGP, Paris
Engineer: Aymeric Létoquart
Mixed November 2021, Les Studios de la Seine, Paris
by Evgueni Galperine, Manfred Eicher, and Aymeric Létoquart
Cover painting: Lorenzo Recio
Album produced by Manfred Eicher
Release date: October 21, 2022

If a composer is an author, then Evgueni Galperine is one who allows characters, actions, and places to speak themselves into logical corners, then breaks those corners to let the vacuum of space have a say. Based in Paris since 1990, the Russian/Ukrainian composer cites the language of cinema as his creative crucible. His first project in that regard was Andrey Zvyagintsev’s Loveless, a soundtrack he wrote sight unseen. (ECM listeners may remember another Zvyagintsev film, The Return, and its music by Andrey Dergatchev.) In the present program, Galperine tears his mise-en-scène from the pages of life itself. Whether reworking prerecorded material or responding to instruments in the moment, this “augmented reality of acoustic instruments” connects events of importance in his life. Aided by the contributions of Sergei Nakariakov (trumpet), Sébastien Hurtaud (cello), and Maria Vasyukova (voice), he breaks the electro-acoustic mold as he defines it, careful not to step on any shards left by the process to regard the partial reflections they offer.

Much of the work is personal, giving us glimpses into the experiences that have shaped his movements in the world. The most poignant is “This Town Will Burn Before Dawn,” for which Galperine imagined himself combing through the rubble of a destroyed futuristic city. “This simple idea took on a whole new meaning with the invasion of Ukraine,” he says, “the land of my father and of my childhood.” And while hope is found, it is unreachable. A cello stretches its arms but finds no contact in return, only an imagining of light amid ringing bells. Like “Soudain, le vide” later in the album, it is a requiem as much for the living as the dead. The flesh, it seems to whisper, is inseparable from shadow. “Oumuamua, Space Wanderings” is a more ambitious but no less intimate self-examination. Inspired by the oblong asteroid that enchanted the world with possibilities of interstellar contact in 2017, it writes its origin story with a Jon Hassell-esque morphology, nestled in an overlay of bright digital signatures and a seeking spirit.

With other influences ranging from Claude Debussy and Dmitri Shostakovich to György Ligeti and Arvo Pärt, a listening mind is clearly at work. Having such a list at hand prompts me to seek other paths of connection. The bellowing of low horns in “Cold Front” evokes the dawn-kissed expanse of Hans Zimmer, while the trumpet of “After The Storm” exhales like the foggy tropes of Ingram Marshall. To be sure, the high strings and beautiful dreams of “La lettre d’un disparu” make for an easy parallel with Pärt’s Tabula rasa. But they also bring me back to my first encounter with Three Pieces in the Olden Style by Henryk Górecki. If anything, my deep kinship with the Polish composer’s broad oeuvre rings truest for me throughout Theory of Becoming. I feel it in the translucent veil of “Kaddish” and the unrelenting textures of “The Wheel Has Come Full Circle”—not simply in terms of structure but in Galperine’s sense of time. It’s like he stretched out Old Polish Music thin enough to see the sun through without letting it rip, giving us a diffuse lens through which to regard the precariousness of our existence.

Even when the inspirations are of a more imaginative persuasion, they feel no less real. A childlike wonder reigns supreme in “Don’t Tell.” This melange of whistling, percussive clicks, trembling strings, and celesta is a record spinning backward. It cradles a flute like a newborn sibling, ending in a unified song of well-being. Lastly, “Loplop im Wald” refers to the magical bird solely capable of traversing Max Ernst’s mysterious painted forests. Tenser and moonlit, its Morse code trails ever outward into a calling of escape, hoping nature won’t come crashing down on itself before the journey can be completed.

With such a profoundly familiar sense of imagination to regard, we are left with only ourselves as companions, conversing until we implode as sound itself.