Trapist
Ballroom

Measuring the Diameter of the Cosmos

That night I just couldn't sleep. Listening to a record and reading something could have been a remedy for insomnia. So I started to look at one CD cover after another, but couldn't choose one suitable for the moment. Frustrated by the indecision, I turned on the radio, which was permanently tuned to 94.5 FM: Radio 3. I expected a symphony, some piano concerto, a string quartet, but instead, an unexpected and unknown music arrived.
Floating, wavy, vibrating, minimal sounds filled the room, hypnotizing me. Transparent notes, continually repeated melodies, electronic echoes, delicate guitar arpeggios, broken rhythms generated a perception of infinity, which quickly caused my mind to drift away. My body was immobile and my breathing regular, almost as if not wanting to disturb those sensations.
Completely forgetting about sleep, I listened enveloped in darkness, my eyes wide open observing nothing.

I hoped to know the author of that music and, after a moment of silence, a name came from the speaker: “Trapist.” Without a second thought, I wrote it down on a piece of paper and went to sleep. But the echo of those sounds remained within me and in my sleep, I felt numb, weightless as if floating among lazy waves.
The next day, my mind, despite being canceled by the drift, still remembered that piece of paper written in the night and the name: “Trapist.” The subsequent and inevitable search quickly revealed the album's title: “Ballroom” (Thrill Jockey - 2004).

The name of the group, a tribute to the silence inspired by the Trappist monks' order, concealed a trio from Vienna consisting of Martin Brandlmayr (drums, percussion, vibraphone, and synthesizers), Joe Williamson (double bass), and Martin Siewert (guitars, electronics).
“Ballroom” is, for the record, their second album and represents the testimony of a session of electronically contaminated improvisations. It took me a couple of months to get it and discover the title of the hypnotic music from that night: “Time Axis Manipulation,” a two-part suite of nineteen minutes. This is followed by two other shorter, but still intensely alienating tracks: “Observations Took Place” and “The Meaning Of Flowers.”
The album ends with another interminable ethereal sound immersion titled “For All The Time Spent In This Room.”

In these days, I've listened to it over and over, each time deriving sensations not much different from those described. However, I still haven't been able to rediscover the same magic of that night, perhaps because certain emotions can only be felt once.