Lute and Pillage

Dutch experimentalist Jozef van Wissem pirates the past and pisses off the traditionalists.

by Shaun Brady

jazz

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To the average American onlooker, Amsterdam is still considered "Old World," so it may not be terribly surprising that it's a Dutch musician who is discovering ways to approach the Renaissance and Baroque lute with modernist intentions. The most incongruous detail is that Jozef van Wissem found his way to the archaic instrument not in some quaint country shack in the shadow of a windmill, but via the classifieds section of The Village Voice.

"I did try to get lute lessons in Holland," van Wissem says, "but the climate was very historically correct and unopen to any experimentation with the instrument or the repertoire. The first thing this American teacher said was, 'You have to come up with your own pieces in order to dust it off, make it new and sexy again.' That's kind of my thing."

Van Wissem began by studying classical guitar at an early age, which introduced him to the lute repertoire. His irreverent approach comes from his diverse influences, which he says began with country blues and Ry Cooder, then spread to the Velvet Underground and eventually to '80s industrial music, citing Nurse with Wound, Psychic TV and Throbbing Gristle as influences. While playing with his hometown's symphony orchestra, he moonlighted in a punk band.

The mental image conjured when one first hears of an experimental lute player is of scraped strings, percussive sounds — basically, evoking sound by playing the instrument in ways for which it wasn't designed, an effective approach on many a more common instrument. But van Wissem goes for none of that, instead finding nontraditional slants on traditional methods and repertoire.

Discovering that in Gregorian music, melodies were sometimes elaborated by being sung backward, van Wissem took that approach to the lute repertoire, transforming pieces into something unresolved, mysterious — and offensive to the classical community. "Some people were really disgusted," he says. "I got a really bad rep with classical lute players. So I said, 'OK, let's take this a little bit further.'"

He began composing in palindrome and adding electronics. Instead of distorting or altering the instrument in any way, he takes full advantage of the lute's resonant beauty, using recordings made in airport terminals to create ambient territories for the chiming strings to occupy. In a way, it's a representation of his nomadic life, split between New York and Amsterdam but largely spent on the road. "I don't really live in one place anymore," he says, adding with a laugh, "I'm kind of like a vagabond minstrel."

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Van Wissem comes to Philly for a duo acoustic set with Japanese guitarist Tetuzi Akiyama. Together, the two take their minimalist tendencies to an extreme, exploring concise gestures and empty space. The lutist recalls playing for Akiyama the first time they met, the guitarist responding, "Can you play less notes?" The two play startlingly few notes when they commune, an experience that van Wissem says can cast an oppressive spell on an audience. "Sometimes it becomes very claustrophobic, and for an audience to enjoy that for 50 minutes is quite a feat. But it's very intense that way, and very special also."

(s_brady@citypaper.net)

Jozef van Wissem and Tetuzi Akiyama play Fri., Feb. 1, 8 p.m., $15, with Trio M, Philadelphia Art Alliance, 251 S. 18th St., arsnovaworkshop.com.