John Palmer waka, “…as it flies…”, nowhere Sargasso SCD 28053 Whether listening to music may be perceived as a beautiful, thrilling or even cringing circumstance, or primarily as a cathartic experience, for those who rather than listening to new music prefer to listen to “New Music”, such considerations may remain an on-going dispute. Listening to a CD which perfectly offers resistance to current descriptions and review stereotypes is by all means a good thing. Certainly, the three works written by John Palmer between 1993 and 2001 belong to “New Music", a hint of which may be detected in the small letters of the titles. This is music with an amazing "sound" that eludes verbal and other categories of dramaturgy, aesthetics and even colour and atmosphere, certainly the way they tend to reside in the minds of reviewers. Speaking of a free musical language would be an acceptable temporary solution, but Palmer's music does not really speak, for it avoids gestures, movements and rhythm in the traditional sense of discursive music. On the other hand, to speak of Klangfarbemelodie would imply an antiquated vocabulary in attempting to describe not only what is obvious, but also an intrinsic component of the music. No, the exceptionality and success of Palmer’s music lies in the consistency with which the sound constantly keeps on sounding. It is an ever-changing and ever-sounding music articulated beyond intellectual, structural or dramatically determined categories and any possible form of academic clichés. In waka, the 21-minute lasting main work on the CD, Palmer has successfully created sound visions that put the listener's sense of time to the test while shaping ever-changing and almost improvised-sounding spaces whose effects constantly appear to be naturally flowing, rather than intellectually staged. This musical freedom turns the act of listening into an adventure, although this word conveys too much excitement and is certainly too much expressionistic for Palmer’s soft and quiet Klangmusik. It is a music that differs consistently from many examples of fashionable mild and quiet music of the typical "post-Feldman" style. The fact that Palmer was inspired by the Japanese tanka may or may not come across his music. Indeed, a trace of Japanese aura dwells in the music, yet the pictorial imagery and impetuous thrusts suggest over and over again a musical consciousness constantly immersed in pure sound. Listening to it and discovering it shall be the listener's, not the reviewer's, task. Hans-Christian von Dadelsen Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, January-February 2007.