Anthony Wilson has a most impressive musical CV. While big band jazz played a pivotal role in his musical upbringing, he also has a great deal of experience in pop music, playing with Paul McCartney, Leon Russell, Randy Crawford and Willie Nelson among many others. To an extent, that is the ‘day’ job – for as a composer Wilson has an experimental and exploratory approach, looking for new sounds and collaborators.
To that end his new album Collidon finds him trying out new sounds and instruments in the company of fellow Colorfield luminaries Anna Butterss, Daniel Rotem, Mark Giuliana and Rob Moose. The producer is Pete Min – and Wilson helpfully lists all the instruments used in the recording (including the keyboards) on the album’s Bandcamp page.
For those wondering, as I was, what ‘collodion’ is, it is a highly flammable solution used in the manufacture of photographic film, or in medicine for sealing wounds.
What’sthemusiclike?
Open minded – but Wilson is not a composer to lose his focus or indulge himself by seeing how many genres he can tick off for the sake of it.
Instead, we are treated to an album that is an exploration for the performers and the listener. Much of it has an instinctive feel, but this is the environment in which Wilson is most effective, with a sixth sense that tells him when to stick and when to twist.
The balance of kinetic energy and contemplation is finely achieved, allowing Wilson time out on Heart Whispering but bringing urgent dialogue to The Daughters Of Night, an atmospheric compilation of nocturnal noises and melodic snippets.
The piano often acts as the fulcrum in his music, whether in the stately chords of Keeping, complemented by more mysterious gamelan sounds, or by providing the harmony for Arrival At Kanazawa, which develops above an urgent drum track to express profound thoughts on the guitar. Dream Oracle adds a breathy tenor saxophone (Daniel Rotem) to its explorations, while the title track features a beautiful, silvery string arrangement executed by Rob Moose.
Does it all work?
Yes – though the feeling persists that Wilson could have enhanced the smaller tracks further, such as the glittering textures of Divine One.
Is it recommended?
It is, enthusiastically. An engaging and sonically rewarding piece of work.
The end of summer brings one of those reassuring points in the Kompakt calendar, the annual release of their Total compilation. Once again it draws a line in the sand to bring us a snapshot of the music the Cologne label’s artists have been making over the last year, while throwing in the gratefully accepted new versions and rarities that we collectors treasure.
What’sthemusiclike?
Very good indeed. While techno is the broad area where the 13 tracks lie, the range of the music runs from soulful introspection to peak time euphoria (aka Rex The Dog)
The collection begins with the subtle shades of Kollmorgen‘s Muddy. After that, Argia’sNo Concept is quite stark but movingly so, before the confident poise of Jürgen Paape makes itself known. Talmi is a cracker, brooding and bristling over a strong four to the floor beat. The cinematic dance is suitably nocturnal. Four Down is classy, while Jon Tejada offers a lovely heat soaked number on Wild Ride. Rex tge Dog an excellent vocal number with its hook take away my sorrow and this pain. Hardt Antoine’s All We See sends tracers out into the night
Does it all work?
It does. Kompakt are well-versed in compilations of this sort, so there is no reason the 23rd instalment should be any different! It has a very satisfying ebb and flow, played out to a nocturnal background.
Is it recommended?
It is – a consistently good guide to where the label is at musically right now.
It is – typically thought provoking work from one of Britain’s finest electronicmusic makers.
New music from Aphex Twin always feels like something of an event, and although this EP has been out in the public domain for over a month the music is still well worth stopping to experience and contemplate.
What’sthemusiclike?
This is Aphex Twin somewhere towards his best, writing music packed with incident but somehow finding time for inward-facing ambience. He achieves this balance perfectly on Blackbox Life Recorder 21f, where a particularly busy rhythm track plays pinball around the stereo picture, but a sonorous bass and overarching keyboard line give time and space.
zin2 test5 is a deeply intimate experience, one man and his machine – its introverted chords leaving their mark long after the active rhythm track is stopped. in a room7 F760 uses cowbells alongside the thick, woolly chords, the experience like a plane flying from sunshine into dense cloud and back out again.
The Parallax mix of Blackbox Life Recorder 21f brings out the fatter low notes, introducing more of a sci-fi feel.
Does it all work?
It does – and all easy on the ear for an Aphex Twin release. Or should that be uneasy? For beyond the ambience lurks a little dread.
Is it recommended?
It is – typically thought provoking work from one of Britain’s finest electronic music makers.
This is the first album Laura Groves has released under her own name. Previously known as Blue Roses, the singer-songwriter marked her move to the Bella Union label with a fresh album of songs recorded with multi-instrumentalist Ben Reed.
The album’s name derives from the two radio transmitting towers near where Groves’s studio is based. The track titles and lyrical content take communication as their theme, providing helpful metaphors for relationship-fuelled feelings with those close by while also noting the interference threatening those connections.
What’sthemusiclike?
There are some beautifully written songs here. The first thing to note is the vocal delivery, for Groves has a naturally appealing voice. To use an old cliché, she could sing the phone book and hold an audience – but when the lyrical content is laden with emotion, as it is here, then the songs are even more meaningful.
Sky At Night sets an airy scene, starlit but with a lingering darkness behind the upward looking melody, which explores the very top of Groves’ range. Good Intention is similarly descriptive, with bittersweet tales of love and vulnerability that extend through the album. This track and D 4 N feature the complementary tones of Sampha, whose rounded timbre is an ideal foil, the latter a lush duet.
At times Groves bursts with positivity, but there is an undercurrent of frustration too, with missed opportunities and misunderstandings. “Can we just get on with it, I’ve got a lot to give!” she sings on I’m Not Crying. There is a strong pull to the yearning Sarah, missing its subject with the line “I hope you’re doing fine”. Time, is irresistible, its winsome melody softly delivered, while in Silver Lining the album has a dreamy coda with underlying resolve.
Does it all work?
It does. The careful shading of the production on this record gives the vocals the ideal platform from which to make maximum expression – which brings parallels with the much-loved Scottish band The Blue Nile to mind. As with them, less is most definitely more.
Is it recommended?
Yes – provided you give it time, Radio Red will have you under its spell by the third listen.
Danish National Symphony Orchestra / Fabio Luisi with Fatma Said (soprano), Palle Knudsen (baritone) (Symphony no.3)
Nielsen Symphonies: no.1 in G minor FS16a; no.2 FS29 ‘The Four Temperaments’b no.3 FS60 ‘Sinfonia espansiva’c; no.4 FS76 ‘The Inextinguishable’d; no.5 FS97e; no.6 FS116 ‘Sinfonia semplice’f
Deutsche Grammophon 4863471 [3 hours 36 minutes] Producer Bernhard Güttler; Engineers Mikkel Nymand, Christoph Stickel
Recorded in live performances at Koncertsalen, DR Koncerthuset, Copenhagen: 1 February (no.4), 3 February (no.2), 3 June (no.6), 17 June (no.1), 26 November (no.3), 28 November (no.5)
Written by Richard Whitehouse
What’s the story?
Deutsche Grammophon continues its latest generation of symphonic cycles (following those first-time traversals of Franz Schmidt and Charles Ives) with that from Carl Nielsen, performed by the Danish National Symphony Orchestra and its incumbent principal conductor Fabio Luisi.
Almost 50 years after the first integral recording of these symphonies (Ole Schmidt with the London Symphony Orchestra on Unicorn/Alto), there are at least 20 such cycles available so that any newcomer needs to bring a fresh perspective on Nielsen’s always distinctive though increasingly unpredictable fusion of innovation with tradition. This pairing of orchestra and conductor is intriguing insofar that the DNSO has been associated with these works from the outset, while Luisi is a musician of broad sympathies with cycles of symphonies by Schmidt (Querstand) and Schumann (Orfeo) plus an incomplete one of tone poems by Strauss (Sony). The result is a Nielsen cycle at times impressive in its conviction if at others dismaying in its inconsistency, and not always in those works or for those reasons one might have expected.
What’s the music like?
Luisi makes his intentions plain at the start of the First Symphony, its initial Allegro launched via an emphatic C major whose impetus is sustained through an impetuous development, with a remorseless acceleration into the implacable coda. Even finer is an Andante by turns elegant and eloquent, strings coming into their own, while only a marginal hesitancy as to the elision between scherzo and intermezzo affects its successor’s stealthy progress. Taut if not inflexible, the final Allegro has innate buoyancy capped with the uninhibited verve generated at its close.
If the Second Symphony is less successful, this is because Luisi does not transcend its status as a symphonic suite. The ‘choleric’ element of the opening Allegro verges on the histrionic, with the humour of the following intermezzo deadpan rather than ‘phlegmatic’. The Andante, though, is superbly sustained over its airily pastoral interlude towards an intensified recall of its ‘melancholic’ opening and coda of fatalistic poise. The ‘sanguine’ trait of the final Allegro is deftly undercut by musing uncertainty, but this yields a slightly tepid resolution in its coda.
Nothing comparable affects the Third Symphony, the ‘expansiveness’ of its opening Allegro abetted by visceral drive in its outer paragraphs and nuanced subtlety in its more speculative passages. The Andante’s interplay of the pastoral and emotional sees a rapturous apotheosis, soprano and baritone vocalises beguilingly intertwined, then the scherzo generates no mean energy prior to its restive ending. Luisi’s steady overall tempo for the final Allegro avoids sluggishness, and not least a coda the more conclusive for its eschewal of wanton triumph.
Despite a properly blazing start to the Fourth Symphony, its opening Allegro emerges as no more than the sum of some admittedly fine parts, with the charm of the ensuing intermezzo just a little too ‘knowing’. The highlight here is a slow movement of real fervency, its dense textures clearly articulated and a transition of simmering intensity into the finale’s headlong fugato on strings. Tension here is ably maintained, but Luisi’s holding back in its peroration replaces that striving onwards Nielsen surely intended with a more generalized affirmation.
This take on the Fifth Symphony is very much a tale of two parts. Luisi audibly locates the ‘tempo giusto’ for the first movement’s opening half – its increasingly ominous expectancy fulfilled in an Adagio of great pathos, albeit with a side-drum cadenza overly reined-in both texturally and emotionally. Too stolid a tempo for the second movement’s initial Allegro is exacerbated by its inhibited Presto, and though Luisi renders its Andante with compassion, his broadening towards the close of the final Allegro is too self-conscious to be convincing.
Is it surprising that the Sixth Symphony rounds off this cycle so perceptively? The complex array of emotions found in its opening movement yields the right ‘innocence to experience’ trajectory, with both the sardonic humour of its Humoreske and the fractured eloquence of its Proposta seria palpably conveyed. Above all, the finale’s outwardly fractious variations unfold with a seamlessness and an inevitability that makes of the coda a culmination whose outcome is held in check until the last bar. A still disputed masterpiece is hereby vindicated.
Does it all work?
Swings and roundabouts. There could be no doubt as to the seriousness with which Luisi has taken on this project, nor of the overall excellence of the DNSO’s playing. Where this cycle falls down is in a lack of focus across the whole, to the extent that there could have been two or even three conductors involved here. Moreover the orchestral sound, warm and immediate but often lacking definition or a consistent balance, feels appreciably different from what this ensemble produces in its home venue – leading one to suspect a modicum of post-production.
For CD adherents the fold-out triple pack is eminently stylish and straightforward, while Jens Cornelius’ note sets the scene adequately enough. The cycle is also available as three separate couplings of Nos. 4 and 5, Nos. 2 and 6 then Nos. 1 and 3 – with the three concertos to follow.
Is it recommended?
Yes, with qualifications. Prospective purchasers are advised to sample the cycle via streaming then proceed accordingly. Certainly, the Third and Sixth Symphonies rank with the finest now available, and listeners should form their own judgement as to the merits of this cycle overall.
Arcana.fm 