(Experimental) Jozef Van Wissem and Jim Jarmusch - Concerning the Entrance into Eternity - 2012, FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless

Jozef Van Wissem's self-proclaimed "liberation of the lute" has always been a process of inversion. In fact, the songs on his very first release, 2000's Retrograde Renaissance Lute (A Classical Deconstruction), are literally inverted. He took traditional lute tablatures and rewrote them upside-down, then cut up and rearranged the results to form new compositions. Since then, Van Wissem has continued to invert his baroque instrument in order to be, as he told us earlier this month, "a lute player with a punk rock attitude." He's written musical palindromes (melodies which sound the same played forwards or backwards), delved into experimental techniques like field recordings and improvisation, and collaborated with modern-styled string players such as James Blackshaw and Tetuzi Akiyama.
Those players dip into classical styles themselves too, but the musical mindset of Van Wissem's latest collaborator, Jim Jarmusch, was formed in the punk-drenched milieu of late-1970's New York. There the now-famous indie film director played keyboards and sang with the no-wave band the Del Byzanteens and shot no-wave films starring musicians like John Lurie and Richard Edson. Which makes the pair's debut album the first full release Van Wissem has made with an actual punk rocker. (Jarmusch added guitar to one track on Van Wissem's 2011 solo album, The Joy That Never Ends).
Such a meeting of divergent backgrounds could result in a kind of tonal car crash, but Jarmusch easily and compellingly weaves his playing into Van Wissem's era-bridging craft. At times their sounds connect like rhyming lines of poetry; in other places, like opener "Apokatastasis (Restoration)", Jarmusch's long tones form the echo of Van Wissem's patient, precise notes. In a few instances, such as when Jarmusch plays acoustic guitar, it can even be tough to tell these twin souls apart.
That complementary vibe is due in large part to Van Wissem's simple, sparse melodies, which leave lots of room for Jarmusch to enter and move around in. Concerning the Entrance has its moments of contrast and tension, too. On "The Sun of the Natural World Is Pure Fire", the way Jarmusch grinds out caustic noise behind Van Wissem's exploratory plucks produces a mesmerizing dissonance. Later, on closer "He Is Hanging By His Shiny Arms, His Heart an Open Wound With Love", he interrupts Van Wissem's solo playing by reciting St. John of the Cross' poetry with a cool, detached tone, sounding oddly like Thurston Moore at 16 rpm.
Still, the best moments come when Van Wissem and Jarmusch share a single musical mind. The most blending comes during the album's middle track, "Continuation of the Last Judgement". As Van Wissem devoutly spins out a lute loop, Jarmusch adds small accents, then slides into electric guitar waves that slyly bend around Van Wissem's cycles. Here, the duo's capacity to find interlocking patterns feels infinite, making "Continuation" the best possible title. You can imagine these comrades spinning their wordless yarns long after the album ends.

Exact Audio Copy V1.0 beta 3 from 29. August 2011
EAC extraction logfile from 12. March 2012, 19:41
Jozef Van Wissem and Jim Jarmusch / Concerning the Entrance Into Eternity
Used drive  : HL-DT-STDVDRAM GP40LB10   Adapter: 1  ID: 0
Read mode               : Secure
Utilize accurate stream : Yes
Defeat audio cache      : Yes
Make use of C2 pointers : No
Read offset correction                      : 6
Overread into Lead-In and Lead-Out          : No
Fill up missing offset samples with silence : Yes
Delete leading and trailing silent blocks   : No
Null samples used in CRC calculations       : Yes
Used interface                              : Native Win32 interface for Win NT & 2000
Gap handling                                : Appended to previous track
Used output format              : User Defined Encoder
Selected bitrate                : 768 kBit/s
Quality                         : High
Add ID3 tag                     : No
Command line compressor         : C:\Program Files (x86)\Exact Audio Copy\FLAC\FLAC.EXE
Additional command line options : -6 -V -T "ARTIST=%artist%" -T "TITLE=%title%" -T "ALBUM=%albumtitle%" -T "DATE=%year%" -T "TRACKNUMBER=%tracknr%" -T "GENRE=%genre%" -T "COMMENT=%comment%" -T "BAND=%albuminterpret%" -T "COMPOSER=%composer%" %haslyrics%--tag-from-file=LYRICS="%lyricsfile%"%haslyrics% -T "DISCNUMBER=%cdnumber%" -T "TOTALDISCS=%totalcds%" -T "TOTALTRACKS=%numtracks%" %hascover%--picture="%coverfile%"%hascover% %source% -o %dest%
TOC of the extracted CD
     Track |   Start  |  Length  | Start sector | End sector
    ---------------------------------------------------------
        1  |  0:00.00 | 10:39.03 |         0    |    47927
        2  | 10:39.03 |  7:15.06 |     47928    |    80558
        3  | 17:54.09 |  9:56.12 |     80559    |   125270
        4  | 27:50.21 |  9:17.19 |    125271    |   167064
        5  | 37:07.40 |  4:02.29 |    167065    |   185243
Track  1
     Filename I:\Music3\Jozef van Wissem and James Jarmusch - Concerning the Entrance into Eternity (2012) FLAC\01 - Apokatastasis (Restoration).wav
     Pre-gap length  0:00:02.00
     Peak level 97.7 %
     Extraction speed 3.2 X
     Track quality 100.0 %
     Test CRC 115E7235
     Copy CRC 115E7235
     Track not present in AccurateRip database
     Copy OK
Track  2
     Filename I:\Music3\Jozef van Wissem and James Jarmusch - Concerning the Entrance into Eternity (2012) FLAC\02 - Concerning the Entrance into Eternity.wav
     Pre-gap length  0:00:02.00
     Peak level 97.7 %
     Extraction speed 3.7 X
     Track quality 100.0 %
     Test CRC E3662348
     Copy CRC E3662348
     Track not present in AccurateRip database
     Copy OK
Track  3
     Filename I:\Music3\Jozef van Wissem and James Jarmusch - Concerning the Entrance into Eternity (2012) FLAC\03 - Continuation of the Last Judgement.wav
     Pre-gap length  0:00:02.00
     Peak level 96.6 %
     Extraction speed 1.8 X
     Track quality 100.0 %
     Test CRC 209824F0
     Copy CRC 209824F0
     Track not present in AccurateRip database
     Copy OK
Track  4
     Filename I:\Music3\Jozef van Wissem and James Jarmusch - Concerning the Entrance into Eternity (2012) FLAC\04 - The Sun of the Natural World is Pure Fire.wav
     Pre-gap length  0:00:02.00
     Peak level 97.7 %
     Extraction speed 2.0 X
     Track quality 100.0 %
     Test CRC 3DDDE062
     Copy CRC 3DDDE062
     Track not present in AccurateRip database
     Copy OK
Track  5
     Filename I:\Music3\Jozef van Wissem and James Jarmusch - Concerning the Entrance into Eternity (2012) FLAC\05 - He is Hanging by His Shiny Arms, His Heart an Open Wound with Love.wav
     Pre-gap length  0:00:02.00
     Peak level 97.7 %
     Extraction speed 1.8 X
     Track quality 99.9 %
     Test CRC DFC8DC01
     Copy CRC DFC8DC01
     Track not present in AccurateRip database
     Copy OK
None of the tracks are present in the AccurateRip database
No errors occurred
End of status report
==== Log checksum 5C174E1F71D11BE71FF449AD99109A9CDA127464BB16BB466460A4E53278F6E0 ====

REM DATE 2012
REM DISCID 3A09A505
REM COMMENT "ExactAudioCopy v1.0b3"
PERFORMER "Jozef Van Wissem and Jim Jarmusch"
TITLE "Concerning the Entrance Into Eternity"
FILE "01 - Apokatastasis (Restoration).wav" WAVE
  TRACK 01 AUDIO
    TITLE "Apokatastasis (Restoration)"
    PERFORMER "Jozef Van Wissem and Jim Jarmusch"
    INDEX 01 00:00:00
  TRACK 02 AUDIO
    TITLE "Concerning the Entrance into Eternity"
    PERFORMER "Jozef Van Wissem and Jim Jarmusch"
    INDEX 00 10:37:03
FILE "02 - Concerning the Entrance into Eternity.wav" WAVE
    INDEX 01 00:00:00
  TRACK 03 AUDIO
    TITLE "Continuation of the Last Judgement"
    PERFORMER "Jozef Van Wissem and Jim Jarmusch"
    INDEX 00 07:13:06
FILE "03 - Continuation of the Last Judgement.wav" WAVE
    INDEX 01 00:00:00
  TRACK 04 AUDIO
    TITLE "The Sun of the Natural World is Pure Fire"
    PERFORMER "Jozef Van Wissem and Jim Jarmusch"
    INDEX 00 09:54:12
FILE "04 - The Sun of the Natural World is Pure Fire.wav" WAVE
    INDEX 01 00:00:00
  TRACK 05 AUDIO
    TITLE "He is Hanging by His Shiny Arms, His Heart an Open Wound with Love"
    PERFORMER "Jozef Van Wissem and Jim Jarmusch"
    INDEX 00 09:15:19
FILE "05 - He is Hanging by His Shiny Arms, His Heart an Open Wound with Love.wav" WAVE
    INDEX 01 00:00:00