Category Archives: On record

On Record – Oliver Patrice Weder: The Pool Project (SA Recordings)

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reviewed by Ben Hogwood

What’s the story?

It is helpful to know where The Pool Project was recorded. Oliver Patrice Weder, a Swiss composer residing in Spain, recorded the album with friends in a pool house, surrounded by an evergreen oak tree forest, just outside of Madrid.

Weder has an intriguing musical history, channeling his love for The Doors‘ keyboard-based work into more classical and jazz-orientated work. Keeping this open musical policy, he sketched the music for The Pool Project in this restful area, before bringing friends in to contribute. The instrumentation speaks more of jazz, including voices, alto flute, bass clarinet and percussion, with Weder himself providing keyboards and electronics.

Weder’s own company Spitfire Audio are simultaneously releasing a sound library, giving composers and producers the opportunity to manipulate the sounds from the album for their own purposes. The toolkit offers an extension of these sounds, capturing the acoustics of the pool house, and is offered as an easy-to-use plug-in.

What’s the music like?

As restful as can be. The lapping of the water and the soft, Satie-like piano loop used in Rainbow Fish are indications of the pace at which Weder is going to operate. Satie is a good point of reference, for this piece operates along the line and rhythmic cadence of his Gymnopédies, developing its ideas subtly.

Weder uses imaginative orchestration to allow his ideas to bloom. The winsome bass clarinet in Lala, or the mellow alto flute on Rainbow Fish are really nice touches, as is the older, slightly untempered quality he gives to the piano, with its soft undercurrents of melody. This gives the chromatic line on Encina a displaced quality, also adding a mellow tone to the soft oscillations of Peter.

Forest Glade bubbles with life, introducing a steady but unobtrusive beat to go with its softly reverberating phrases, secured from a delayed Wurlitzer electric piano.

Does it all work?

It does. Everything about this meditation is unforced, Weder’s ideas allowed to pursue a naturally evolving path until they come to rest. Sometimes the listener is invited to sit back and enjoy the lightly applied jazz flavourings to the melodies, but then on occasion Weder complements the slow, quiet music with pockets of reviving energy.

The guest instrumentalists pitch their contributions just right, and deserve to be credited – Clara Gallardo on fulsome but mellow alto flute, while Joaquín Sánchez Gil moves from light meanderings on Peter to more outright, jazz-influenced work on Lala. Guitarist David del Cerro Turner frames the closing Distant Island beautifully, while percussionist Juan Espiga brings the necessary movement to Forest Glade.

Is it recommended?

It is. The Pool Project is a beautifully executed piece of communal meditation, its simple phrases blossoming into restful tableaus of music.

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On Record – José González: Local Valley (City Slang)

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reviewed by Ben Hogwood

What’s the story?

Local Valley is the first we have heard from José González in six years. His fourth album, it draws on his previous solo work for inspiration, but also his work with Junip, the duo he is part of with Tobias Winterkorn.

González is a modest music maker, by which I mean that he never shouts from the rooftops about his new work. He could have done this after the success of his cover of The Knife’s Heartbeats in 2003, harnessed by Sony for a TV commercial with thousands of bouncing balls on the streets of San Francisco. Yet he chose to let his music do the talking, and continues to do that in such a way that repeatedly draws his loyal listeners in.

What’s the music like?

Like a familiar jacket you find in the wardrobe after a few years without wearing, José González immediately gives comfort to the wearer. His music should not be pushed straight into the easy listening bracket, mind. Although it certainly fulfils that function, there is a lot more depth to Local Valley. It is the sound of a songwriter content with his style but pushing subtly at the limits of his capabilities.

El Invento is immediately back into the familiar González territory of slightly honeyed vocals and languid guitar, casting a heat haze over the listener, before Visions heads outdoors. To the sound of blackbirds, González takes stock of his surroundings. ‘We are here together’ is the mantra at the end, to increasingly dreamy accompaniment.

Once again, José uses his guitar as a miniature orchestra, complementing the vocals with grace and assurance. Horizons is an obvious example, a rippling tremolo from the instrument accompanying the repeated murmur ‘to be at peace’, the listener effectively placed next to a bubbling stream. The following Head On is more animated, the ideal injection of energy at this point, the guitar now turning over its countermelodies.

Freshly energised, González diversifies to include more electronic beats. The hypnotic Tjomme works brilliantly in its combination of soft voice and surprisingly propulsive Afrobeat, while the up tempo Valle Local and Lilla G are similarly enjoyable. The latter, with its easy going loop, could easily spin out for more than double its two minutes.

Does it all work?

Yes. González sees no reason to change his winning formula, but he never rests on his laurels either. His style is at ease with itself but increasingly extravert, intimate but casting its gaze further afield.

Is it recommended?

Definitely. Local Valley offers a valuable respite from our increasingly rabid civilization. It casts a spell immediately, returning the listener 42 minutes later in a far more relaxed condition than when it picked them up. It is a musical therapy session with repeatedly good side effects.

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On Record – Jordan Rakei: What We Call Life (Ninja Tune)

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reviewed by Ben Hogwood

What’s the story?

Jordan Rakei is hitting a rich vein of form and productivity in his musical life. What We Call Life, though, is his most meaningful and personal album to date. It is an exploration of his experiences during therapy, and in particular ‘positive psychology’. In this deeply personal exercise he learned a lot about himself, his behaviour patterns and anxiety triggers, and how his marriage compares to that of his own parents.

Not the average material for a soulful singer – but Rakei takes it as the basis for a profound look at his own life.

What’s the music like?

Perhaps not surprisingly, What We Call Life is deeply expressive. Yet Jordan Rakei manages to avoid any charges of self-obsession that could be levelled at him. Instead, he makes every situation and experience very relatable, and he does that through his own voice – which is a subtly powerful instrument and communicator.

His words are very easy to follow but the song structures really help his cause, as does the instrumentation. The string arrangements are beautifully managed, the slightly skewed beats with hints of funk and / or soul at every turn, the delivery in a conversational style – all these aspects of his style add extra authenticity and authority.

The songs are deeply considered – and even the bigger structures like Brace take their time but leave their mark too. The title track is especially impressive, but Rakei’s most vulnerable moments – Clouds, Send My Love and Illusion – are his most revealing.

Does it all work?

Yes. With each album Jordan Rakei’s authority grows, and this one is the most consistent yet. Measured but heartfelt, each of What We Call Life’s songs is both believable and relatable.

Is it recommended?

Wholeheartedly. Few singers could match his poise and personal style at the moment, and it is all the more impressive given that no singers sound like Jordan Rakei at the moment. He is a serious singer, but he is a compelling one too.

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On Record – Saint Etienne: I’ve Been Trying To Tell You (Heavenly)

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reviewed by Ben Hogwood

What’s the story?

For their tenth album, Saint Etienne have taken a trip down memory lane. The trio of Bob Stanley, Pete Wiggs and Sarah Cracknell have all been recalling events, thoughts and emotions from 1997 to 2001, a period when the UK was basking in rarefied optimism under New Labour. Was it all a bad dream? Was it as good a time as people thought?

Using samples and clever production techniques, the trio pose these questions and more, in the form of a sample-based album that uses clips from the time period. For the first time – presumably for lockdown reasons – the album was recorded remotely, with no need for a studio – and with assistance from composer Guy Bousfield, who wrote two songs on the album.

What’s the music like?

Very relaxed and dreamy, even for a Saint Etienne album. It is much less song-based than is the norm for the trio, and the aim of the gentle memory jogging is subtle rather than firmly pointed. The focus on sonic snippets and the dubby, instrumental approach could easily be teleported from the period in question. We hear less from Sarah Cracknell as a vocalist, but that means that the times she does appear are accentuated, her phrases given extra importance. The profile of the music yields more satisfaction with each listen, as the manipulation of the samples is made clearer.

The samples themselves are unexpected – with appearances for Honeyz, The Lightning Seeds, Lighthouse Family and Samantha Mumba that if anything emphasise the musical distance we have put between ourselves and the period in focus. The field recordings have a more immediate effect of how society might have been before the pandemic, creating their own form of yearning.

Cracknell it is who starts the album, with several vocal lines competing for the foreground in Music Again, where a loping beat ebbs and flows gently. Fonteyn pans out even further, with the wide open natural spaces including birdsong at the end – a quality shared by many recently-released albums, recorded under lockdown conditions. Fonteyn segues into the gorgeous Little K, a warm fuzz of a track with dappled harp and sun-blushed ambience.

Blue Kite is glitchy in profile, drifting in and out of focus, before working up more of a head of steam. Pond House has a slow, wide open beat with a woozy texture, enhancing the dream state along with Cracknell’s ‘here it comes again’ loop. The singer comes to the front of the virtual stage for Penlop, a lullaby in all but name that calms the senses, before the gentle lapping of Broad River completes the recollections.

Does it all work?

Yes. Albums rooted in nostalgia often make the mistake of over-using the rose tinted spectacles in their longing backwards glances, but if anything I’ve Been Trying To Tell You does the opposite, in an unforced but gently nagging way.

The album is more a single construction than previous Saint Etienne long players, its relative lack of songs compensated by the bigger overall structure.

Is it recommended?

It is. I’ve Been Trying To Tell You poses as many questions as it answers, and although it works extremely well as an album to get horizontal with, there are many layers to its genius. It subtly but pointedly asks where the UK is now, where it is going, and were we all sold a dummy as the millennium approached?

There is an accompanying film from photographer Alasdair McLellan but the music for I’ve Been Trying To Tell You creates its own beautifully rendered imagery for the listener to lose themselves in. It is a rather lovely album.

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On record – Weinberg: Complete Violin Sonatas Volume Three (Yuri Kalnits & Michael Csányi-Wills) (Toccata Classics)

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Mieczysław Weinberg
Violin Sonata no.3 Op.37 (1947)
Violin Sonata no.6 Op.136bis (1982)
Solo Violin Sonata no.3 Op.126 (1979)

Yuri Kalnits (violin), Michael Csányi-Wills (piano)

Toccata Classics TOCC00096 [60’36”]

Producers Yuri Kalnits, Michael Csányi-Wills
Engineer Rupert Coulson

Recorded 9-12 July 2016 at St John’s Fulham, London; 7-8 July 2020 at K Studios, London (Solo sonata)

Written by Richard Whitehouse

What’s the story?

After a lengthy hiatus, Toccata Classics duly continues its series devoted to the violin sonatas by Mieczysław Weinberg with this third volume featuring two further sonatas with piano and the last of his solo sonatas – in performances comparable to those on the earlier two volumes.

What’s the music like?

It is a measure of how the Weinberg discography has grown that, in the decade or more since this cycle commenced, all the composer’s violin sonatas have now been recorded on several occasions. Good, then, that Toccata has opted to see it through as the interpretative stance of Yuri Kalnits and Michael Csányi-Wills is a persuasive one – not least for the subtlety of its interplay between violin and piano such as underlines the increasingly and flexibly idiomatic nature of Weinberg’s writing for a medium that remains problematic whatever its popularity.

With the Third Sonata (1947), Weinberg achieved an all-round assurance as is evident from the flexible handling of content within each of these progressively longer movements. Thus, the moderately paced initial Allegro exudes a purposefully provisional feel, fulfilled by the central Andantino with its achingly expressive deployment of Jewish folk elements, before being intensified in the final Allegretto cantabile that moves adeptly between eloquent and energetic ideas prior to a Lento coda which brings the work deftly and movingly full-circle.

Unlike its predecessors the Third Solo Sonata, dedicated to the memory of the composer’s father, unfolds as a continuous span which, though it can be viewed as several interrelated movements, is more akin to variational episodes on the motives heard at the outset. As if to underline this audacity, the writing for violin is the most resourceful and imaginative to be found in in any of these pieces – a heady succession of mood and textures such as reaffirms Weinberg’s technical and creative mastery when confronting apparent restrictions head-on. 

Weinberg abandoned the duo medium in the late 1950s and when the Sixth Sonata emerged, it went unacknowledged until 2007. Yet a work dedicated to the memory of his mother must have held a deeply personal significance. The initial Moderato, where the instruments come together only at the centre and are framed by an anguished prologue for violin then resigned epilogue for piano, speaks of intensely subjective emotion – as do the elegiac central Adagio and a finale which surveys previous material in a more consoling if ultimately fatalistic light.

Does it all work?

Yes, not least given the widely differing concept that underlies each piece (further proof that Weinberg repeated neither himself nor other composers), as well as the undemonstrative yet searching approach of the performers. Others may favour the commanding rhetoric of Linus Roth (Challenge Classics) or the forthright incisiveness of Stefan Kirpal (CPO), but the more understated manner of Kalnits and Csányi-Wills likely brings out the inward intensity of this music more completely. As a cycle for repeated listening, it should prove difficult to surpass.

Is it recommended?

Indeed, abetted by almost perfect instrumental balance and detailed notes by David Fanning. A fourth volume – which, other than the early Three Pieces, might feature the Sonata for Two Violins and Gidon Kremer’s arrangement of the 24 Preludes for cello – is keenly anticipated.

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You can discover more about this release at the Toccata Classics website, where you can also purchase the recording. You can read more about Yuri Kalnits here, and more about Michael Csányi-Wills here