David Rothenberg - Bug Music

     David Rothenberg - a professor of philosophy and music, jazz musician and a composer. He managed to unite all his abilities and interests to create a unique combination of animal sounds with instrumental music.

     In his album Bug Music (2013), Rothenberg plays a duet with the singing of insects, including cicadas, crickets, leafhoppers, and beetles. For me it was a little funny when I heard "thrumming, scraping, and drumming" beetle sounds together with the saxophone, but I cannot deny it was an exciting experiment. The composer's goal was to establish a connection between the natural and civilized world, since little creatures like bugs have been producing a lot of original rhythmical patterns since the beginning of times.

     The philosophy professor and jazz musician does not hide his expertise in entomology, about which he has published a related book. But the CD is about the musical possibilities that arise from interacting with the sound of the insects. He uses recordings as samples, gets the cicadas to settle down on the microphone with the help of fellow researcher Charles Lindsay, confronts the various chirping and scraping noises with electronically generated doubles and his bass clarinet.

    In several tracks Rothenberg rhythmizes the sounds of crickets, cicadas and grasshoppers, backing them up with the rocking rhythms of the electric guitarist Robert Jürjendal or, in the last track, with a propelling, complex electronic beat. I particularly like the second piece of his CD Bug Music, which is enhanced by a mechanical jazz echo and the participation in a rattle of Archaboilus musicus grasshoppers, who can produce several tones.