Marcus Pal's Head-Shaking "Harmonic Exclusion"
The Swedish musician's experiment with just intonation reveled in meditative monotony.
“The ketamine didn’t work?”
“Molly doesn’t work on me.”
“I can’t get blackout anymore.”
No, these were not overheard at Studio 54 or House of Yes. I heard them at Blank Forms, the experimental performance space and gallery in Clinton Hill, on September 12. The special crowd of queer hipsters and washed-up La Monte Young disciples (and I) had arrived to hear Swedish musician Marcus Pal experiment with just intonation on a prepared, open-faced piano. The piece, Harmonic Exclusion, was billed as an “iterative” work, which studies “the perceptual effects and intangible qualities of harmonic sound.” The sub-hour long concert felt less like listening to a musician playing, and more like listening in on music happening.
It was my first time there, and was surprised when I came upon a run-of-the-mill fifth-floor walkup in place of a ticket window or lobby entrance. A buzzer stood before me. I looked up the address, buzzed 3F, but got no answer. A guy came up behind me and I asked if he was there for the concert; he said yeah and buzzed the right apartment, which of course is the only one that had a sticker on it: 1D.
I forced open the heavy metal door into a dim gray hallway. 1D was the first door on the right and was cracked. I entered and was immediately inundated with the smell of incense, like walking into a Catholic mass. It foreshadowed the quasi-spiritual performance that was to follow. Wine was available at the check-in table, and a few people hung around the brick cell, talking about poppers and getting hammered.
I was directed into another part of the room, which was the ‘concert hall.’ I was struck by the shaggy Persian rugs, sitting pillows, large record collection, reel-to-reels, broken-in couch, and the sound panels on the cold stone white walls. An upright piano with no cover stood at the front. I examined it, finding black felt in between some of the upper piano strings, and a couple of ratchets attached to washers. I went back to my seat — a tiny stool — and Ellen Arkbro, another Swedish musician who collaborates with Pal, spoke French to the woman sitting on the stool in front of me. She, too, experiments with just intonation and other tuning systems, but her 2022 album I Get Along Very Well Without You — a collaboration with Johan Graden — features her as an intimate, tender vocalist, singing memorable, though still experimental, melodies. Pal, who uses they/them pronouns, wore a denim buttondown and had their hands in their pockets while they talked with guests and gently smiled. When it was time to begin, they didn’t say anything about the music, but just sat down at the piano, took a long pause of silence, and played.
From the first twangy chord to the last dying dissonance, the fantasia-like piece lasted under an hour and occupied space rather than time. It didn’t go anywhere, but sat firmly and psycho-actively in a delirious atmosphere of semi-percussive attacks and wistful, minute, chord-changing reactions, which Pal calls “after-images.” The whole time, Pal shook their head vigorously, only pausing once in a while when there was complete silence. I couldn’t figure out whether this was an automatic tick, or something they did intentionally to enhance their own trance-like disposition at the instrument. Whatever it was, it was distracting. And yet it added mystique to Pal, like they were a shaman, or witch. As a result, the whole sound was draped in a spirituality that demanded reverence and closing your eyes.
It was humorless music, like nature. There’s nothing funny about nature, except for maybe cow moos, cuckoos, and farts. But the real elemental stuff — earth, wind, fire, water — is all serious, which is why we fear it more than we welcome it. And so it actually makes sense that Pal’s music is nothing to laugh at. After all, just intonation is the system of tuning which, used until 1500 C.E., most closely represents how the overtones of the harmonic series naturally distribute themselves (when you can pick out all the hidden frequencies in a vibrating string or air column). The system dishes out notes by frequency rather than dividing them up equally between the octaves. In just intonation, there are even more notes (microtones) that occur which we never hear in normal — equal temperament — music. And yet, although the math is interesting, the expressive possibilities (at least in the way we are used to) are limited. Just intonation offers less freedom for modulation (no functional harmonies) and for manipulating scales. There are thus fewer opportunities for conventional expressiveness, which we usually achieve through modulations, building anticipation.
Because of these limitations, Pal’s music was drone-like, staying in what sounded like one key. The basic rhythmic action became predictable after a while. It was a paradigm of actions and reactions. Pal would play a chord, sometimes consonant, sometimes with a slight dissonance. Then, while holding most of the chord, they would change one or two notes, bending the consonance or resolving the dissonance. Lastly, Pal would let this new chord fade out before beginning the cycle anew. Each initial attack was percussive, piercing, while its fallout was more wistful and flowing. There were, of course, variations. Sometimes, Pal would play several notes as a reaction in a seemingly abortive attempt at melody. The melody would peter out, though, fading off once again. This did get boring at times, but such is its nature.
The monotony compelled me to get up from my stool, sit cross-legged on the carpet below me, lean against the wall, and close my eyes, hoping to induce my own trance. I didn’t totally turn on, tune in, and drop out, but I had vague visions of Pal’s harmonies swooping and swirling in my mind’s eye, like an Etch A Sketch. I started to hear his his minute, reactionary modifications to the chords as gamakas — ornamentations used in South Indian classical music to emphasize the unique character of a raga or note from a raga. Somewhere between Western classical music’s trills and portamenti and jazz’s bent notes, gamakas add a tinge of flavor to an otherwise pure note. I never wished that it would end.
When I opened my eyes to modest, conservative applause, I didn’t know any more about tuning systems, Pal’s music philosophy, or how the objects in the piano that I saw affected its sound. But I did feel that something special happened in the room. I was more at peace than I was when I walked in (and I didn’t even have any wine). I felt that Pal is a seriously innovative musician who will contribute more and more to the branch of experimental music that conjures never-before-heard sound combinations seemingly out of thin air.