Ashley Bathgate: 8-Track
New Focus Recordings
No, Ashley Bathgate's new release isn't an affectionate homage to that clunky ‘70s playback technology remembered fondly by renegade audiophiles. It's instead a reference to Steve Reich's Counterpoint series, which involves a live performer playing against seven pre-recorded tracks of the same instrument. The series includes works created for flute, clarinet, and electric guitar (the one by Pat Metheny probably the most famous Counterpoint recording) as well as, of course, cello. On her third solo album, Bathgate presents Cello Counterpoint alongside three other pieces that likewise couple the soloist with layered tracks. Composers Emily Cooley, Alex Weiser, and Fjóla Evans build on the foundation established by Reich and go off on adventurous tangents that while different from his creation retain connections to it. That makes for a recording that cellists will obviously love but can be appreciated by any open-eared listener receptive to contemporary classical material.
Currently residing in Saratoga Springs, New York, Bathgate brings years of live performance and recording experiences to the new project. A graduate of Bard College and Yale University, the cellist was a member of Bang on a Can All-Stars from 2009 to 2019 and is now a member of the chamber music group HOWL and TwoSense with pianist Lisa Moore. Featuring a set of cello pieces composed by Moore, Bathgate's debut solo album, Stories for Ocean Shells, appeared on Cantaloupe Music in 2016 and was followed three years later by ASH on New Amsterdam Records.
For Augun, Canadian/Icelandic composer and cellist Fjóla Evans drew for inspiration from the traditional Icelandic song “Vísur Vatnsenda Rósu.” At the outset, see-sawing patterns evoke the impression of keening voices engaged in counterpoint before the focus shifts to other details, a dive-bombing glissando among them. Gradually the elements gather into a shimmering, gently undulating mass that seems to advance and retreat when not entrancing as a slowly swelling supernova. In the as-transfixing Assemble, Philadelphia-based composer Emily Cooley organizes various bowed and plucked parts into distinct groupings until they eventually morph into a glorious chorale. The eloquent articulation for which Bathgate's renowned comes into play here and does much to intensify the lyricism of Cooley's poignant expression.
Born and raised in New York City, Alex Weiser is one of today's most compelling composers; that his debut album and all the days were purple, issued on Cantaloupe Music in 2019, was named a 2020 Pulitzer Prize finalist intimates as much. While he's the only composer of the four to be represented by two pieces, the lovely, folk-tinged Willow's Song, an arrangement of a William Carlos Williams setting, acts as a bewitching prelude to Shimmer, at twelve-and-a-half minutes the recording's longest performance. As an ascending pattern repeats, the nod to classical minimalism is made explicit, but Weiser moves beyond strict reference in having the cellos blur into a swirling swarm and then splinter into separate supplications. As the dense array continually rises, the effect is mesmerizing, never more so than when the initial, now slowed-down melodic figure arcs across the animated collective and the material flirts with ecstasy. Weiser distances himself even further from Reich's template in having Shimmer work its way episodically through multiple connecting parts.
Written for Maya Beiser in 2003, Cello Counterpoint, similar to other Reich works, frames two uptempo sections with a slower one, the movements in this case unfolding without pause over an eleven-minute duration. Familiarity hasn't dulled the work's impact nor its beauty, which is amplified all the more by Bathgate's exuberant execution. Delivered with passion, the work plays like anything but an academic exercise and instead a feverish, high-energy dynamo. The sequencing of album material is clearly something that was thoughtfully considered. Had Bathgate placed Reich's work first, the others would have been heard in its shadow. Placing his at the end, on the other hand, allows their compositions to be experienced fresh. It also makes Cello Counterpoint feel, when it does arrive, like the natural culmination the project's been inching towards.
Aside from the sensual beauty that results from eight cellos sounding together and the variety of the compositions, what recommends 8-Track as much are the performances by Bathgate. That's not simply a matter of the technical achievement involved in executing the material accurately and synchronizing the eight parts within each piece but something more: how convincingly she creates the impression of a interactive performance as opposed to what each one, in fact, is, one live performance conjoined to seven pre-recorded ones. It's a special performer indeed who can make a multi-tracked production sound like the playing of an expressive live ensemble, but that's exactly what Bathgate does, and it's this as much as anything else that distinguishes 8-Track.September 2023