Tag Archives: Matthew Bourne

On Record – Matthew Bourne: This Is Not For You (The Leaf Label)

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by Ben Hogwood

What’s the story?

Matthew Bourne returns to first principles, with his first solo piano album since the 2017 release Isotach.

The press release reveals that there are, however, some restrictions around the recording of the album, “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?”

What’s the music like?

There is a stillness about Matthew Bourne’s playing on this album that proves to be rather moving. Every note is carefully considered and weighted, and delivered in a conversational manner that makes the listener feel they are the only person in the room with him.

The titles give this away too, personal reflections like To Francesca, Dissemble (for Brian Irvine), Only When It Is (In Memoriam Bill Kinghorn) and Dedicated To You, Because You Were Listening (In Memoriam Keith Tippett) The first of these uses rich cello and crystalline Dulcitone beautifully to complement its lightly questioning phrases. The Bill Kinghorn and Keith Tippett tributes are stately, the latter with a mournful, tolling motif that gathers power before subsiding to near silence.

By contrast The Mirror And Its Fragments has an eerie undertone, with low cello again in the mix.

Does it all work?

It does – being a completely unforced way of making music. The emphasis is on communication of feelings and meanings more than anything else, with the result that the ‘less is more’ approach winds hands down.

Is it recommended?

It is. While Matthew Bourne’s exploits on the big screen should be encouraged, and his more experimental workings with keyboards and other instrumental groups, it is great to hear him go back to where it all began. With new insights, this is a piano-led album to savour.

For fans of… Yann Tiersen, Dustin O’Halloran, Zbigniew Preiser

Listen and Buy

Published post no.2,254 – Monday 29 July 2024

New music – Matthew Bourne: This Is Not For You (The Leaf Label)

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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?”

You can listen to This Is Not For You. below:

Published post no.2,227 – Friday 12 July 2024

On Record – MINING: Chimet (The Leaf Label)

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by Ben Hogwood

What’s the story?

The story behind this remarkable album is best read through quotes from the MINING Bandcamp site and press release, as it bears repeating.

“Chichester West Pole Beacon, also known as Chimet, is a comprehensive weather information system recording conditions in Hayling Bay, West Sussex, both in real-time and historically. Located at 50° 45′.45 N, 00° 56′.59 W, approximately one mile from the entrance to Chichester Harbour, the instrumentation on Chimet records data including air and water temperature; barometric pressure; wind speed and direction; water depth; wave height, period and frequency; and time of day.

Over a period of seven days in October 2017, the devastating Atlantic Hurricane Ophelia fed straight into another weather event, known as Storm Brian in the UK. MINING mapped the data from this storm onto various musical values and parameters, including harmonic range, pitch, density and volume – resulting in a continuous piece of electronic sound design that directly traces the contours of the two storm systems. After several iterations, improvised instrumental performances were added on piano, cello and synthesiser.

The album was created using 2,016 sampled data streams, collected every five minutes between 0030 on October 16th 2017 and 0025 on the 23rd, translating seven days of information into 67 minutes and 12 seconds of detailed and evolving music. With mother nature orchestrating the piece, she is joined by intuitive and powerful improvisations on piano, cello and synthesiser. The recording captures the sense of building expectation and tension, the dropping air pressure, the rising winds, the interlocking storm systems and the serene aftermath. The shifts are seamless, monumental and open to the elements.”

MINING was conceived by Craig Kirkpatrick-Whitby, with sound design and programming from PJ Davy. The improvised contributions on piano, cello and Lintronics are all made by Matthew Bourne.

What’s the music like?

Intense, yet ambient at the same time. The circumstances of composition mean that Chimet is certainly best heard as an uninterrupted stream (pun intended), describing the weather activity in remarkable detail.

Yet the crowning achievement of this project is that in their work together, Craig, PJ and Matthew have made something that has deep emotional content. The sound ‘beds’ are effectively drones, slowly shifting in deep colours, over which Bourne is able to work some carefully thought improvisation.

Ophelia develops very slowly, over a quarter of an hour, but there is something immediately ominous about its approach. The synthesizers pile up, with the occasional intervention from the piano – with layers of notes in swirling harmony, before they gradually retreat. Petrichor poses more of an initial threat, the foreboding low synth sounds presenting a dark outlook, before the relative calm of Latent – a slow piano meditation – dispels the worry.

The central section starts with a piece depicting Chimet itself, the remoteness of the open water apparent in Bourne’s distant musings on the piano. Then, with Arise, a series of long cello notes provide a swell in the texture, moving seamlessly into the elongated Force 10 Pts. 1 & 2. Here the held notes feel bleaker, until the inexorable build that piles them up towards the sky, a regular ticking holding everything in place. There is a strong sense of the ravaged seas, of craft blown this way and that, but also Chimet standing tall throughout.

The epilogue, Debris, has a synthesizer motif depicting the aftermath, with matter falling back to earth and settling, the long note underneath held until it passes from audible range.

Does it all work?

It does. For such incredibly slow music to maintain this level of intensity is remarkable indeed, something few artists can achieve. The melodies may be minimal, but getting caught up in the sweep of the extended piece is inevitable.

Is it recommended?

It is – a proper musical experience that should be played from start to finish, so the listener can get the whole awe-inspiring weather events recreated in their own environment.

For fans of… Loscil, Stars of the Lid, Biosphere

Listen and Buy

Published post no.2,118 – Friday 15 March 2024

Keith Tippett Octet at the London Jazz Festival

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Keith Tippett Octet [Keith Tippett (piano/composition, above); Fulvio Sigurta (trumpet/flugelhorn), Jim Gold (alto and soprano saxophones), Paul Booth (alto saxophone/flute), Kieran McLeod and Rob Harvey, trombones; Tom McCredie, double bass; Peter Fairclough, drums/percussion]

Guests: Matthew Bourne (piano), Julie Tippetts (voice/lyrics)

Hall One, Kings Place, London; Friday 10 November 2017

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse

This year’s London Jazz Festival got off to an auspicious start with tonight’s contrasted sets featuring Keith Tippett, whose inimitable and always resourceful piano playing has graced many solo and collaborative projects over the course of nearly half a century’s active service.

Before the interval, Tippett was joined by Matthew Bourne (above) – himself a pianist who has built up a formidable reputation for essaying the unexpected – for a half-set in which these pianists engaged in what might passably be described as a ‘call and response’ session of far-reaching possibilities. The past century has seen a rich legacy of music for two pianos, and it was hard not to discern echoes of such seminal works – ‘classical’ in designation while not necessarily conception – as Debussy’s En blanc et noir and Bernd Alois Zimmermann’s Monologe in the alternately stealthy and quixotic interplay of these musicians.

Frequent recourse was made to the piano strings, whether directly or through ‘prepared’ means, and Tippett at one point took up a solitary maraca to set in motion a vibrant cross-rhythm in what was often complex and sometimes ominous music-making. Just whether this set had reached its intended conclusion seemed in doubt, to judge from Tippett’s regretful leave-taking of the keys, but there was no question as to the tensile power and momentum generated by these two consummate players.

After the interval, the Keith Tippett Octet assembled for a complete rendering of The Nine Dances of Patrick O’Gonogon – Tippett’s 2014 project made possible by crowdfunding and recorded at Real World Studios. Music this intricate and involving is as much the outcome of compositional planning as the real-time responsiveness of those realizing it, so the means in which the two aspects came together across these nine pieces was itself rewarding. Nor was there a loose or informal succession as the first three, then the subsequent two pieces played continuously; leaving those final four pieces to unfold as a natural and extended culmination where earlier elements were developed accordingly. The sequence amounted to a conspectus of invention and virtuosity such as might be expected from an opus with Tippett at the helm.

All the instrumentalists were allotted solos or at the very least spotlights, during which their different personalities (irrespective of instrument) came to the fore. Then followed what was billed as a ‘coda’, in which the penultimate The Dance Of Her Returning was reprised but with lyrics by Julie Tippetts (above) and sung with her customary understated eloquence. The octet played out with Tippett’s arrangement of the Irish traditional tune The Last Rose Of Summer – by turns pensive and plangent, and bringing to an end this memorable and affecting recital.

Further information can be found at Tippett’s website and at that of Discus Music