The excellent Maja Bugge here with her latest record Together (NO LABEL). We enjoyed this Norwegian cellist with her No Exit album in 2018, released on the Discus Music label, where she memorably did it inside a tunnel exploiting the natural echo and making a conceptual / historical statement too. Today’s record is less of a sustained attack, and offers six rather melancholic pieces, each sad melody played with deliberation and poise, exuding compassion and a love for humanity (also strongly indicated in the cover image). Clarinet player Matt Robinson adds woodwind in places, and we also hear the voice of John Smith on ‘New World’ where he utters a few pithy phrases. I suppose ‘Timeless’ is one moment where Bugge exhibits a slightly more experimental side, through extended bowing technique and wild intervallic leaps, but she’s not one of these attention-seeking string players who want to amaze the listener with unexpected sounds. Very accessible and accomplished release. (15/07/2022)
Earth (Music for Solo Piano by Stephen Barber) (NEW FOCUS RECORDINGS FCR34) strikes me as yet another contemporary classical work where the music remains largely untroubled by modernism; accessible melodies and harmony abound across these 13 miniatures, played here by Eric Huebner. Even the titles tell stories, or paint pictures like the most banal of watercolours; we don’t seem too far away from a piano pupil’s first book of tunes from the 1950s. Texan composer Barber comes to us from film scores and pop music, and he’s worked with some considerable talents in rock, jazz, pop, and classical. He draws inspiration from wildlife, birds, and the night sky. I’m probably wrong about the uninformed-by-modernism thing, as apparently some of this music quotes (or evokes) the works of Debussy and Messiaen. The film score career might also help to illuminate his penchant for figurative images. I was hoping the Donald Trump portrait (‘Slowly Dripping Beast’) might be more trenchant, but despite the low-register chords and odd curlicued stabs, it still feels twee and unthreatening. Hard to believe this guy was in a band (The Electromagnets) that, in 1975, opened for Frank Zappa. (22/07/2022)
Sent to us from his home in Long Beach California is Bolsa Chica Calm by the American composer Jack Curtis Dubowsky. He’s not only interested in the environment, but also happens to be a surfer himself, so presumably can claim a strong bond with the ocean. We have to give him full marks for devising such a completely-integrated statement – the music blends in perfectly with the sounds of the sea and the surf (and the rain, which was recorded by way of an air conditioner mounted in his window). He also makes plain his love of New Age music, easy listening, and movie scores, areas which he’s studied and written about, and his ideas about these genres fed into the work which he painstakingly layered and put together using piano, guitar, a Jupiter 6 synth, and field recordings. (Some help from Charles Sharp and his clarinets has been noted too.) Bolsa Chica Calm thus represents a successful meld of ideas; it’s not just that the sounds work together well, but there’s a real sense of reconciliation; we have here the essence of a fellow who finds himself at peace with the world. Although at first this sounded very soft-centred, overly “mellow”, too slow, and even rather twee with its sweetened melodies, it soon starts to make musical sense and is very enjoyable, soothing, rewarding. There’s a limited edition CDR presentation for those who crave a collectible item. As Van Dyke Parks once sang, “come to the sunshine”. (21/07/2022)
Another splendid work by Bruno Duplant, one of my current personal favourites of enigmatic and sometimes minimal composition. His Sombres Miroirs (CRONICA 188-2022) is, by his standards, positively teeming with activity and events, and in this floating richness we can hear everything from backwards orchestras to uncertain cosmic gyrations – planets spinning or nebulae drifting into the distance. Profound, too, are the thoughts of the composer himself who conceived and executed this fascinating suite in two parts; he muses, not without some melancholy, on such deep matters as nature, humanity, civilisation, and the fate of the planet. What perceptions does he come away with? “Dark in my eyes and embittered in my heart,” comes the stern reply. The overall effect of the composition isn’t intended to induce unhappiness, however, and he takes things as a cosmic cycle where “hope and despair [move] in ever-recurring successions”. More than once, these “dark mirrors” put me in mind of my beloved Ligeti, showing Duplant can successfully deliver the micro-tonal thing without straying into ambient gloop or soppy drone. I wonder if it really is orchestrated, or made with tapes and keyboards? Either way, a beautiful work for gazing into the abyss at the heart of everything. Glory be! (13/07/2022)