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The pair shares a history in Bristol’s underground music scene as well as an
impressive list of production credits. Ginzburg, now Berlin based, runs a
network of record labels including electronic music label Subtext and Arc
Light Editions, whose reissues include a work by Arthur Russell. He’s a prolific
producer and remixer for both independent and major labels, with diverse
projects such as Faint Wild Light, Ginz and more recently Bleed Turquoise.
Purgas, now based in London, founded the We Elude Control label in 2009,
a curated collection of rare experimental music. Purgas is an artist, writer and
curator who has presented projects with Tate, Whitechapel and Serpentine
Galleries, and he is also an active promoter of electronic music in eclectic
spaces from a carpark to a Modernist pavilion.
Each project’s framework and parameters dictate how the sound or performance
evolves. In the past, Emptyset have explored the ways in which the sonic
and spatial interact within different architectural contexts: often site-specific
locations such as the decommissioned Trawsfynydd nuclear power station in
North Wales, or the neo-gothic Woodchester Mansion. Borders takes a different
approach, centering around the performative and the performer. Having each
created their own tactile instruments, a six-stringed zither-like instrument and
a drum, Emptyset focuses on how organic sounds interact with the analogue
processes that have defined their work to date.
Contrasting typical approaches to making electronic music, Emptyset set out
to emphasize live performance rather than creating sequences within devices.
While Purgas and Ginzburg utilize vintage analogue electronics, compressing
and distorting the signals, the album itself is performed entirely live, where
subtle movements make for substantial changes in sound.
From the very first track, “Body,” one can hear how the physicality of the
instruments have imbued the sound’s texture. The physical characteristics of
the metal strings create a layer of dynamic juxtaposition to the grinding timbres
emerging around them. The broody “Ascent,” features the album’s clearest
call-and-response between the stringed instrument and the drum, barking and
thudding back and forth at one another. Evident in tracks such as “Border”
and “Speak,” Emptyset uses basic rhythmic structures drawn from an array of
broad cultural practices, expressed neutrally and without overemphasis on the
source. Taken as a whole Borders distills the duo’s inspirations to their essence
and the resulting music is as raw as it is captivating.