Earlier this year we wrote about Acknowledgement, an album by New York-based Mark Trecka on Whited Sepulchre Records. The record “[sat] at the intersection between the intellectual and the intuitive,” we wrote, “at times fragmentary and experimental and others emotional and minimalist.” A fifteen year dialogue “between the personal and the political,” Acknowledgement explored the connective tissue between all members of society, with special focus on those unseen, forgotten or ignored. Those incarcerated, the houseless and stateless.
The resulting compositions moved between plaintive and chaotic, though eventually found meaning and joy in the sheer physicality of noise. As we concluded:
It’s a wordless reminder that although Mark Trecka is committed to exploring serious themes, his work is far from devoid of hope. Rather, Acknowledgement is a compassionate work of art which insists that we as a society share both our joys and our burdens.
This autumn sees Mark Trecka return with Implication, a brand new album again on Whited Sepulchre that has its roots in the same recording process as Acknowledgement. Aside from one exception, all the sounds on the record were sourced from single prepared piano improvisation performed during that very same session, with Trecka manipulating the result with various loops and effects to build a strikingly diverse palette.
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The exception to the rule comes via ‘Radiance’, a track at the album’s heart which sees Trecka joined by Walt McClements and his processed accordion. With a glistening tone and patient movement, the sound lives up to its title, presenting an almost celestial air as McClements wrangles the loops into a kind of slow-moving order. But despite this otherworldly style, there’s a rawness too. An unprocessed experimentalism that grounds the track as the product of two humans interacting with, and responding to, one another.
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True to the Mark Trecka oeuvre, the aims and intentions of Implication extend beyond the sound’s surface. The title track was first created for a performance broadcast on Bethlehem, Ramallah and Amman-based radio station, Radio alHara. Trecka had gathered writing from incarcerated people in New York State, and shared them during the performance via the station’s chat channel. This intertextual dimension again drew attention to those ignored or forgotten by society, and the impact far exceeds that of the songs alone. The intimate and imperfect collaboration of ‘Radiance’ comes to represent a truly human beauty, while the warmth of closer ‘Focus as Shelter’ cuts through the traditional barriers to carve out a safe and benevolent space. Implication is therefore both a statement and a sanctuary, a reprieve from the violent disregard of society and an indication of how communication and collaboration might work to dismantle its hold.
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Implication is out now via Whited Sepulchre Records and available from the Mark Trecka Bandcamp page.
