On the back cover of Remedy, the first CD in the series of discs that have been planned for the musical collective known as A Crack in Time and the Break of Dawn, there is a question that the band wants you to consider. To condense and paraphrase the question, they ask: If you take away the conscious past and the conscious future, what will be left? “The ever-present Now”. It is in “the ever-present Now” where A Crack in Time and the Break of Dawn exists.
This collective of rotating musicians under the guidance of Helge Corneliussen creates their music to be experienced as it happens and once it ends, the collective moves on to the next musical setting. Born from a 48-hour long improvisational festival in Norway, the group of musicians have gathered together from time to time to create music on the spot and record the results to release later. The resulting recordings have been produced to create totally unique CDs of music. The band recently put out the initial album entitled Remedy.
Checking out the packaging of the collective’s debut, there is an absolute lack of information: Whether the collective considers itself one entity so that no one person should be singled out, or if there was a lack of accounting for which member was on stage at what point, no musician is given credit for playing on the release.
On a related subject, A Crack in Time and the Break of Dawn also decided to be very non-decisive about naming their musical creations: No song is actually given a title, they are simply known by the number of the track they end up being in the tracking of each disc. As Remedy has three tracks, the songs are Track 01, Track 02, and Track 03.
Since the recordings of songs by A Crack in Time and the Break of Dawn will ultimately end up being released over the course of five CDs, perhaps the collective decided to start the series off with the songs that were deliberately light and slow; at least, that’s the way it comes across listening.
With the three songs that make up Remedy, the chosen music is quite laid back and over-simplistic. When the collective makes the claim that they have a rock style to their songs, these songs are very experimental with a lot of avante garde feel to them. One might ask where the rock influence is.
Each selection on the album encompasses the entire length of the improvisation. Had the group decided to allow the songs to be played out and then gone back and edited them to a stronger section of the piece to begin the composition, that would have made the release more interesting. Tighter production should have been considered.
Although stronger songs could have been chosen, the songs that are present on the album are very indicative of improvisation. The easy-going nature of the music tells you that the musicians let the music take them wherever they would eventually end up. It takes talent to completely improvise music on stage and the musicians who make up A Crack in Time and the Break of Dawn do not disappoint musically. Now, if only the song selections can be stronger for the rest of the upcoming releases, the musical collective can make a name for itself.
Review by Matheson Kamin
