Optometry – John Tejada and March Adstrum – return with a second album. Lemuria is described as a ‘sci-fi musical diary – a deeply personal record that processes the year’s events through introspection and creative exploration’.
By way of background, Tejada is known as a quality source of largely instrumental techno, while Adstrum is a guitarist and vocalist, whose parents played baroque violin. She toured backstage with a number of their ensembles.
This time the pair share production duties, realising the whole project in person and with lyrics taken from Adstrum’s diary entries. The songs ‘explore themes of rebirth, loss and closure.
What’s the music like?
There is certainly a wider range of emotions on this album than the pair’s After-Image debut, though there is a strong sense of melancholy that can be felt in the downtempo offerings. Unanswered captures this keenly, Adstrum singing of “another step on the treadmill”, before changing gears for the excellent Never Coming Back, a compelling quicker number.
Fear (Is The Mind Killer) is expressed through a twisted synth line, whose presence is a vivid source of anxiety. Distortion of a different kind pervades the slow and stately Target Practice. Emphasising the contrasts on the album, resignation is the overriding feeling on Antidote, but Bon Voyage promises a great deal more with its bubbling energy.
Does it all work?
It does, largely – with an instinctive meeting of minds that works well. Lemuria is defined as “an annual event in the religion of ancient Rome, during which the Romans performed rites to exorcise any malevolent and fearful ghosts of the restless dead from their homes”. This is not necessarily a dramatic rite, but a therapeutic one.
Is it recommended?
It is. Tejada and Adstrum have a compelling musical chemistry and their storytelling is well worth following.
For fans of… Steffi, John Tejada, Francis Harris, Michael Mayer
This is effectively a collection of big and small screen offcuts, written over the last half decade. They have been selected and sequenced by Tim Hecker into a short LP.
The compositions were originally written for scoring projects including Infinity Pool, The North Water, Luzifer, and La Tour.
What’s the music like?
This is an intriguing collection from Hecker, whose work is never less than descriptive. In his company we move easily between electronic and acoustic music, the running order set by the mood.
The slow-moving Heaven Will Come is cold and eerie, oddly majestic but fragile at the same time as it slowly takes shape, its slowly descending motif compromised by glitches at the bass end. Monotone 3 is distinctly unnerving, with quarter tones that spread unease.
Morning is more restful, led by an easy piano figure, while Icesynth is also more consonant in its language. Sars Requiem feels transported in from a much earlier period in musical history.
Joyride Alternate is the most immediate track, warm and consoling as its keyboards inhale and exhale, a natural complement to the following Sunset Key Melt and its airy panorama of the end of the day.
Does it all work?
While understandably fragmented, Shards is a successful grouping of disparate pieces.
Is it recommended?
While not necessarily the right starting place for a full appreciation of Tim Hecker’s craft, this is certainly recommended for those familiar with his work. The vivid evocations of place create lasting and memorable pictures in the mind’s eye.
For fans of… Lawrence English, Stars Of The Lid, Fennesz, William Basinski
Listen / Buy
Published post no.2,457 – Wednesday 26 February 2025
Colombian producer and vocalist Ela Minus made waves with her debut LP for Domino, Acts Of Rebellion, in 2020.
Now DÍA, the follow-up, is described as “a record about becoming, from a process that entailed self-discovery at a deliberate pace to songs that seem to collectively ask where we go from here, long after we’ve been broken but long before we intend to be broken forever.”
Minus worked with the same team as her debut, Marta Salogni and Heba Kadry providing the critical studio support.
What’s the music like?
There is a notable urgency in the way Ela Minus makes her music, and a confidence that she is saying exactly what she wants to say, with a compelling mixture of pop sensibility, underground electronic creativity and a willingness to try new things.
After Abrir Monte gives us an airy introduction, Minus goes for broke with the epic Broken, and the glitchy track IDK. Onwards drives forward with impressive intent and focus, while Upwards takes those qualities to the next level with terrific momentum, a suitable way to crown the short but urgent tracklist.
Does it all work?
It does. While DÍA could arguably benefit from being longer, it is a statement of intent, a compressed but vital piece of work.
Is it recommended?
Yes, enthusiastically – a telling reminder of the abundance of talent in South American electronic music. Ela Minus is an original voice who, on this evidence, has plenty more to say and plenty more places to go.
For fans of… Miss Kittin, Ellen Allien, Sofia Kourtesis, The Hacker
Listen / Buy
Published post no.2,457 – Wednesday 26 February 2025
Jong-Gyung Park (piano, below), Tonbridge Philharmonic Orchestra / Oliver Cope (above)
Tchaikovsky Romeo & Juliet Fantasy Overture (1869, rev. 1880) Rachmaninov Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini Op.43 (1934) Brahms Symphony no.4 in E minor Op.98 (1884-5)
Chapel of St Augustine, Tonbridge School, Tonbridge Saturday 22 February 2025
Reviewed by Ben Hogwood Photos of Oliver Cope, Chapel of St Augustine (c) Ben Hogwood
This was the first concert for the Tonbridge Philharmonic Orchestra under their interim musical director Oliver Cope, in the position while current incumbent Naomi Butcher is on maternity leave. On this evidence he has quickly built a rapport with the orchestra, already in fine fettle under Butcher’s recent direction. On this occasion they responded with a memorable concert of Romantic favourites, given in the spectacular setting of the Chapel of St Augustine in Tonbridge School.
It is easy to take Tchaikovsky’s inspiration for granted, for his storytelling and melodic gifts are so abundant that his best music flows irrepressibly. Such is the case with the Romeo & Juliet Fantasy Overture, in spite of the two revisions required for its composer to be fully satisfied. Cope was an athletic presence on the podium as the orchestra responded with a dramatic account of the lovers’ story, the sword duel between Mercutio and Tybalt particularly vivid, while the soaring love theme tugged at the heartstrings. With fire and brimstone, and crisp ensemble playing, this performance lit the touch paper at the start of the evening.
If anything, Rachmaninov’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini was even better. This was because Jong-Gyung Park (above), the popular rehearsal pianist with the Tonbridge Philharmonic Choir, delivered a sparkling account of the theme and its 24 variations. Cope threw down the gauntlet with a brisk tempo, yet Park rose to the challenge by taking control of even the quickest exchanges. There was an instinctive flow through the first six variations, the mood acquiring an appropriate chill as the Dies Irae was introduced in the seventh. From here the music travelled down darker roads, though still found time for a baleful sixteenth variation, before a shiver could be felt in the air as the seventeenth took hold. The famous eighteenth variation was lovingly delivered, before a flight to the finish that saw Park dazzle with her virtuosity, never losing sight of the whole picture.
To complete a challenging program, Brahms’s Symphony no.4 – and after initial hesitation, a convincing interpretation revealing this work’s unique bridges to the past – notably Bach – and the future, with Schoenberg on the horizon. There was an attractive open-air quality to much of the orchestra’s music making, with the second movement becoming a spring-like counterpart to the obdurate first. The scherzo built on this, dancing with a smile on its face. Flautist Rebecca Rees led a fine woodwind section in the second movement, where the horns, led by Paul Kajzar, were suitably fulsome. They were to prove critical to the success of the finale as the passacaglia developed, capping a performance with serious outlines but shot through with bursts of optimism suggesting Brahms still had a great deal to be thankful for later on in life. It put the seal on an extremely impressive concert.
Recital Hall, Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, Birmingham Monday 17 & Tuesday 18 February 2025
Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse
Royal Birmingham Conservatoire has put on some notable extended events over recent years, the latest being Best of British – a two-day retrospective of piano music from UK composers past and present, all performed by current, former and associated musicians of this institution.
Monday lunchtime centred on composers ‘Made in Birmingham’, beginning with the Second Sonata of John Joubert. His three such works encompass almost his whole maturity, of which this is the longest – taking in a cumulatively intensifying Allegro, volatile Presto with a more equable trio, then a finale whose fantasia-like unfolding culminates in a powerful resolution. Rebecca Watson was a sure and perceptive exponent. Dorothy Howell’s Toccata was given with verve by Rufus Westley, with Christopher Edmonds’ Prelude and Fugue in G elegantly rendered by Ning-xi Wu. Chiara Thomson was dextrousness itself in Howell’s Humoresque, then Zixin Wen found quixotic humour in her Spindrift, before John Lee and Ruimei Huang enjoyed putting Joubert’s early and engaging Divertimento for piano duet through its paces.
Monday afternoon opened with Frank Bridge – his Three Lyrics given by John Lee with due appreciation of their keen insouciance, as too the menacing aura of his much later Gargoyles. Established as the pre-eminent English art-song composer of his generation, Ian Venables is no less adept in combining violin and piano – witness the expressive poise but also rhythmic impetus of his Three Pieces, to which RBC alumni Chu-Yu Yang and Eric McElroy were as emotionally attuned as they were in plumbing the expressive depths of Gerald Finzi’s Elegy.
Next came John Ireland – his imposing if somewhat discursive Ballade finding a committed advocate in Roman Kosyakov, who had no less the measure of his atmospheric Month’s Mind with its undertones of Medtner. Yinan Tong proved suitably alluring in The Island Spell (the first of Ireland’s Decorations), while Ruimei Hang conveyed elegance as well as playfulness in Bridge’s Three Sketches. Expertly partnered by Sarah Potjewijd, clarinettist Jamie Salters steered an insightful course through the diverting formal intricacy of Ireland’s Fantasy Sonata.
Monday evening commenced with further Ireland in ‘Phantasie’ mode – his First Piano Trio finding a productive accord between its Brahmsian inheritance and his own, subtly emerging personality at the hands of violinist Roberto Ruisi, cellist Nicholas Trygstad and pianist Mark Bebbington. They were joined by violinist Shuwei Zuo and violist Jin-he Huang in Venables’ Piano Quintet, among the most substantial and certainly the best known of his chamber works. Its opening Allegro is preceded by an Adagio whose acute pathos underlies the robust energy of what follows, before a Largo such as takes in the capriciousness of its scherzo-like central section without disrupting its soulful discourse; while the finale’s animation is not necessarily resolved by its slow postlude, a sense of this music come affectingly full circle is undeniable.
The second half found these artists in a performance of Sir Edward Elgar’s Piano Quintet doing full justice to a work which, whatever its eccentricity of form and content, is worthy to stand beside any of his mature masterpieces. How persuasively they elided between the haunting ambivalence of the first movement’s introduction and its trenchant Allegro, with the central Adagio gradually emerging as a statement of great emotional import, then the final Allegro building inevitably to an ending of fervent affirmation. Memorable music-making indeed.
Tuesday lunchtime brought more ‘Made in Birmingham’. Michael Jones gave an interesting overview of his teacher Christopher Edmonds, two more of whose Preludes and Fugues – the elegance of that in E then the rapture of that in A – preceded his Aria Variata which, inspired by wartime experiences in the Crimea, channels the influences of Scriabin and Cyril Scott to personal ends. Zoe Tan teased out unity from within the diversity of Howell’s appealing Five Studies, before Duncan Honeybourne gave of his best in the Third Sonata written for him by Joubert. Inspired by lines from Thomas Hardy on the innate futility of the human condition, its three movements unfold an inevitable trajectory from aggression, through compassion, to a resolution more powerful for its inherent fatalism. A fine piece and performance to match.
Tuesday afternoon brought a varied programme in terms of style and media. Chian-Chian Hsu was alive to the limpid poise of Frederick Delius’s Cello Sonata, while otherwise leaving her attentive pianist Charles Matthews to set the interpretive parameters. Honeybourne was then joined by Katharine Lam in the Sonata for Two Pianos by Andrew Downes – whose subtitle A Refuge in times of trouble indicates the ominous unease, shot through with a consoling warmth, that pervades these three, lucidly designed movements by its underrated composer.
Jing Sun gave her own, attractive take on Bridge’s Rosemary (second of his Three Sketches) – before which, Ren-tong Zhao and Jake Penlington offered an unexpected highlight in Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis as stylishly arranged for two pianos by Maurice Jacobson. A not inconsiderable composer, the latter was represented by his quirky Mosaic with Zijun Pan and Julian Jacobson as fluent duettists; Julian returning for his Piccola musica notturna that feels more Busoni than Dallapiccola, if a haunting study in its own right.
Tuesday evening consisted of four notable works. Daniel Lebhardt opened proceedings with Joubert’s First Sonata, this tensile single movement fusing a variety of ideas into an eventful and, above all, cohesive whole through a masterly formal and motivic development. Not that Ethel Smyth’s Second Sonata was lacking such cohesion and if its three movements, arrayed in the expected fast-slow-fast sequence, seemed indebted to the pianistic idiom of Schumann more than that of Brahms, the unbridled rhythmic elan of its opening Allegro (set in motion by a no less forceful introduction), the gently enfolding harmonies of its central Andante (a ‘song without words’ in spirit), then its impulsive final Presto as surges to an aptly decisive close needed no apology. Just the sort of piece that is worth revival at a festival such as this.
As equally was Howell’s Piano Sonata, its more understated and equivocal emotion no doubt representative of a very different persona and one which Rebecca Watson duly brought out – whether the eddying motion of its initial Moderato, intimate calm of its central Tranquillo, or mounting resolve of its final Allegro to a (more or less) decisive close. Yun-Jou Lin rounded things off with Sarnia – An Island Sequence that is arguably Ireland’s most successful such piece for its keenly evocative quality, as was conveyed here though her scintillating pianism. Quite an embarrassment of riches, but one which came together effectively in performance – thanks not least to Mark Bebbington in his curating of the event. It hardly needs adding that there is an abundance of this music for a ‘Best of British, Part Two’ on some future occasion.
For artist and repertoire details in listing form, head to the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire website – clicking here for Day One and here for Day Two
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