published by Ben Hogwood, with text appropriated from the press release
Matthew Bourne has been a busy man of late. Hot on the heels of his Nightports collaboration Dulcitone 1804 he has returned to the piano on record for the first time since 2017’s Isotach.
As the press release says, “for such a restless and forward-thinking artist, perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised that Bourne can be a little reluctant to return to the instrument on which he made his name. At least in public. That would be too easy.”
It continues. “These days Bourne tends to find himself seated at his first instrument when working on collaborations or commissions for film and television projects. It’s often in these moments that inspiration strikes and the pieces are committed to tape. With outside deadlines, those sparks can often be left. Forgotten about. Recorded over.
This Is Not For You. was born from an off-hand comment by one of Matthew Bourne’s confidants. His instruction, “Do not delete,” provided Bourne with a commission of sorts, an ideal restriction to work within. Everything on the album was given a chance to shine in the studio, to be worked on amongst the freedom of that no deletion diktat – new inspirations now lie beside deep-mined remembrances. Cello and Dulcitone have been added sparingly for colour, but this is Bourne playing for his own enjoyment. Intimate. Reserved even. The real Matthew Bourne?”
‘Emotional rave’ is the slogan Ólafur Arnalds and Janus Rasmussen have applied to their second outing as Kiasmos. Due no doubt to intensive work schedules and popularity, it arrives ten years after their self-titled first long player together.
It is more of a widescreen affair than the self-titled debut, and included a trip to Ólafur’s studio in Bali in 2021. There the duo stayed for a month, writing and recording several tracks.
What’s the music like?
An absolute state of bliss is achieved as the first track arrives on the breeze, Grown becoming a beautiful blend of atmospherics and a stately chord progression. Sailed presents a relaxing middle ground, a languid melody, but offset by a busy drum track that keeps everything moving.
From there the songs follow a relatively familiar pattern, whereby a swell of cinematic, quasi-orchestral music is followed by a dip, where the drum track retreats and mottled piano takes centre stage, before the build up begins again and the drums return in a busier state. This happens to rich effect with the strings in Laced and Bound, and powerfully so on Squared.
Flown has a really nice piano / harp motif, while Dazed is a beauty, infused with Balinese percussion and the echoes of a sunrise, together with upright piano.
Does it all work?
It does – though at times the music sticks too rigidly to a familiar format and structure. That is potentially good for fans, though for this particular listener it led to a wish for more experimentation, knowing what the two artists are capable of.
Is it recommended?
It is – especially if you have the first Kiasmos album and are familiar with the solo works of the two artists. This is ideal music for taking the emotional weight off a day, or providing valuable time out – and the feeling persists that any sequel collaboration could really take off with a more instinctive approach.
For fans of… Nils Frahm, Max Richter, Rival Consoles
published by Ben Hogwood – text is reproduced from the press release
Seth Troxler and Phil Moffa’s multi-hyphenate, multi-dimensional Lost Souls Of Saturn have always been an extended and evolving tribe of co-conspirators, and for their new digital remix album Reality Hacked (which is preceded by two vinyl remix EPs), the pair have called upon some of electronic music’s finest. The result is a set of reworks of tracks from their second album Reality, which takes the originals and scatters them even deeper across the galaxy. Out today, Om Unit’s take on This Foo delivers a masterclass in post dubstep drum work, which you can listen to below:
Elsewhere Pangaea presents some of his best material, turning Click into a pacey neon rave pumper, whist Danny Daze and his D33 alter-ego beams Lilac Chaser into bloopy-minimal-space-race headspace – you can listen below:
UNKLE aka James Lavelle turns Click into a grandiose, Ibiza-friendy pop prog anthem, whilst Matthew Dear goes in the opposite direction on his version of Mirage, delving into deep-beat cosmic fractals. For her take on Mirage Perel goes big on the oompty-boom-tish-euro-fist-pump, whilst Jonny Rock reassembles the same track into an unclassifiable avant space chugger. Brendon Moeller delivers not one, not two but three versions of Scram City; a ‘House Dub’, which does what it says on the tin, a pulsatile submarine throbber under his Echologist moniker, and a Reshape, which combines the dub techno for which he’s renowned with 90-style breakbeat science and 70s Krautrock.
Earlier this year, whilst on various capers across the farthest reaches of space, Lost Souls Of Saturn metamorphosed into sci-fi AR comic characters John and Frank. They returned back to earth with their perception-melting new LP Reality, which was described as “the kind of record you make at the top of your game” by Resident Advisor.
‘Reality’ was accompanied by a cutting-edge augmented reality graphic novel, which tells the origin story of John and Frank. It’s a genuinely new type of total artwork, with comic, augmented reality and musical soundtrack working together to create a type of synesthesia. Every spread, page and panel, when viewed through a tablet screen or AR headset/glasses, comes to life in animated 3D. Moreover, the LSOS soundtrack is synched perfectly, with the music fully integrated, looping and layering as the reader follows the panels of the comic itself. A soundtrack that evolves as the graphic novel is read is the first of its kind. This is music, animation and illustration in sync like never before.
Coinciding with the album and comic release, Lost Souls Of Saturn held a month-long multimedia exhibition at London’s cutting-edge public art platform W1 Curates. Described by Evening Standard as “one particular corner of central London transformed into a giant, interactive comic book”, it bought LSOS’ conceptual word-building to vivid three-dimensional life. A first in the comic book world, augmented reality visions from the comic were shown on giant super high-definition floor-to-ceiling LED screens not only inside the gallery, but on Oxford Street itself.
The AR comic and W1 Curates London event continued Lost Souls Of Saturn’s previous experiments in the augmented reality sphere; their AR billboards in London and Ibiza, their exploratory work in the field of 3D printing and AR markers, and their creation of Mixmag magazine’s first AR triggered front cover.
Challenging the convention of ‘format’ in every sense, LSOS transmit and engage via the mediums, to date, of vinyl record, digital, art installation, artefact, augmented reality, 360 video and live performance.
Through LSOS, Troxler, Moffa and cohorts explore new ways to open doors of perception and challenge the ways we see our world, whilst marrying the prescient visions, political aspirations and psychedelic energy of science fiction and early rave culture, with postmodern philosophy and contemporary art.
Their collaborations to date include Fondation Beyeler, Olafur Eliasson, The Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York) Saatchi Gallery (London), Museum Of Contemporary Art Detroit, the Centre D’Art Contemporain Geneva, Wolfgang Tillmans, Ernest Neto, W1 Curates, Carl Craig and Pepe Braddock.
They have performed live at Fabric, Field Day, Glastonbury and Kappa Futur.
Unstern are described in the press release for this album as a ‘devotional music outfit’, a label that makes perfect sense when you listen to their music.
At its heart are the workings of ambient artist Arzat Skia and pianist Leo Svirsky, with studio collaboration from Civilistjävel!, Skia and Stefan Betke. While leaning heavily on electronics there is a good deal of acoustic input, from two pianos ‘refracting across the stereo field, processed recordings from the Peruvian Amazon, bowed percussion by Greg Stuart, alongside strings and renaissance meantime organ recorded at Orgelpark in Amsterdam.
The idea is to produce an audio illusion, where incremental repetition leads to an eventual departure from the music heard at the start, inspired by but not limited to the craft of Morton Feldman. The album title – translating as The day goes – links up with that.
What’s the music like?
Es Geht Der Tag works on several levels. As background music it is sonorous and sublime, its foreground giving a deep sense of perspective made even more rounded with the bass of the opening track, whose curious title – All the Kingdoms of the World in a Moment Of Time – suddenly becomes clear. It is as though ancient and modern civilizations are aligning in the same place, and the wide range of the spectrum gives it a huge spatial arc.
And yet it works as music without any of the floral descriptions, slow moving progressions that are both soothing and energising. We hear the reassuring tread of the organ pedals during Of Fire And The Many-Eyed Wheels, with thicker clouds of ambience up top and an insistent, throbbing percussion right at the far end.
Malign Star has a slow moving stillness and distance, cast by what sounds like a muted trumpet, ending up as a disparate chorale. In The Roar of Your Channels has a colder, static ambience, but Es Geht der Tag sur Neige introduces heavy footprints and an even colder outlook, the sense of snow beneath the feet difficult to shake off!
Does it all work?
It does. You can approach this music from several directions – from the thick ambience of GAS and the like, the reserved yet intense writing of Morton Feldman, or the more processed chillout music of Chicane. All are valid departure points to end up in an extremely chilled-out place.
Is it recommended?
It is. This is a rather special album, its mixture of ancient and contemporary creating a strange tension but ultimately a wonderful sense of calm. Listen and fall under its spell.
For fans of… GAS, Loscil, Morton Feldman, Arvo Pärt, Sofia Gubaidulina
Music and libretto by Sir Michael Tippett Sung in English with English surtitles
Jo Ann – Francesca Chiejina (soprano), Donny – Sakiwe Mkosana (baritone), Nan – Sarah Pring (mezzo-soprano), Merlin – Lucia Lucas (baritone), Pelegrin – Joshua Stewart (tenor), Regan – Samantha Crawford (soprano), Presenters – Grace Durham (mezzo-soprano), Oskar McCarthy (baritone)
Keith Warner (director), Michael Hunt (associate designer), Mariana Rosas (chorus director), Nicky Shaw (designer), Simone Sandrini (choreographer), John Bishop (lighting designer), Matt Powell (video designer)
Birmingham Opera Company Chorus, Actors and Dancers, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra / Alpesh Chauhan
The Dream Tent @ Smithfield, Birmingham Sunday 7 July 2024
reviewed by Richard Whitehouse Photos (c) Adam Fradgley
Around a decade ago, Birmingham Opera Company mounted a production of Tippett’s opera The Ice Break which vindicated this opera as a dramatic entity, so making its composer’s fifth and final opera New Year a logical further step in the rehabilitation of a latterly neglected and frequently derided dramatist. What was seen and heard tonight was typical of BOC only in its playing fast and loose with a work that, far from representing a creative decline, finds Tippett pushing – unequivocally even if erratically – against the boundaries of what may be feasible.
Since its staging at Houston in 1989 then at Glyndebourne the following summer, New Year has barely surfaced in considering what was a productive and diverse era for opera in the UK – occasional revivals of its suite a reminder of those riches that more than outweigh any dross. Much of the problem lies in just what this work is – a masque whose ‘‘primary metaphor’’ is dance. What better than to locate it in a ‘Dream Tent’, which here functions as the scenic and sonic environment where ‘‘Somewhere and Today’’ collides with ‘‘Nowhere and Tomorrow’’?
Keith Warner’s direction makes resourceful use of the space therein. At its centre, a circular platform enables the presenters to comment on the action, as well as a means of bringing its climactic aspects into acute focus. At either end are a house where the humans are domiciled, then a white cube that opens-up to reveal a spaceship from where the time-travellers emerge. Along either side are gantries for chorus and orchestra – the former as volatile in its comings and goings as the latter is inevitably static, but their synchronization was hardly ever at fault.
Above all, such an array allows free rein to Simone Sandroni’s choreography – as animated or visceral as the scenario demands and abetting a sense of the opera playing out in real-time to onlookers either side of the dramatic divide, which duly blurs in consequence. Both Nicky Shaw’s designs and Matt Powell’s video make acknowledgement of that period from which New Year emerged, while John Bishop’s lighting comes decisively through the haze of ‘dry ice’ to illumine the production and denote the proximity of this opera to the heyday of MTV.
Vocally there was little to fault. As the reluctant heroine Jo Ann, Francesca Chiejina overcame initial uncertainty for a rendition affecting in its vulnerability; to which the Donny of Sakiwe Mkosana was a telling foil in its reckless self-confidence and excess of adrenalin. They were well complemented by the Merlin of Lucia Lucas, duly conveying hubris poised on the brink of disaster, and the Pelegrin of Joshua Stewart whose growing desire to bring together these separate but not thereby competing worlds bore eloquent fruit in his love-duet with Jo Ann.
It was those other two main roles, however, that dominated proceedings. Sarah Pring gave a powerful while never inflexible portrayal of Nan, her innate fervency in contrast to the steely authority of Samantha Crawford (above) whose Regan approaches the human world with something between trepidation and disdain – not least in her confrontation with Donny, where Tippett’s would-be rap provoked some amusement. Splitting the role of Presenter worked effectively, Grace Durham and Oskar McCarthy (below) duly enhancing the stage-action with no little panache.
Not for the first time, BOC Chorus came into its own for what is among the most extensive and immediate of Tippett’s choral contributions to opera – the oft-favoured device of Greek Chorus afforded a visceral twist as it conveys the ominous and often violent attitudes of ‘the crowd’. That many of those involved have signed-up specifically for the occasion only adds to the rawness and physicality of its collective presence: something that the composer was at pains to capture, and which could not have been realized this directly in earlier productions.
Conducting the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra with typical discipline and energy, Alpesh Chauhan brought requisite vibrancy and clarity to Tippett’s writing. Less purposefully wrought than in his previous operas, there is no lack of subtlety or imagination – the frequent reliance on percussive sonorities to sustain the overall texture hardly an issue when so deftly realized as here. Is there a more moving passage in his output than the dance for Jo Ann and Pelegrin after their duet – Tippett’s musical past and present brought into disarming accord.
Playing for around 105 minutes, New Year is relatively expansive next to Tippett’s preceding two stage-works so that certain aspects of those outer acts do verge on diffuseness. That this hardly came to mind on the opening night was tribute to the conviction of those involved in seeking to reassess what this opera might be and, moreover, what it is there to do. Far from having run out of ideas, Tippett had a surfeit of these that he struggled to make cohere but in which he so nearly succeeded. Do see this engaging and enlightening production from BOC.
Arcana.fm 