Heather Woods Broderick: Domes
Dauw

Domes is a dramatic departure from the work for which Heather Woods Broderick has become known. Whereas the three solo albums preceding it might be classified as singer-songwriter material, the new one, released by the Ghent-based Dauw label in vinyl and digital formats, is an entirely instrumental set of soundscapes the California-based artist generated using cello. A clear understanding of her intentions is needed before addressing the material. Though she is classically trained and can play guitar, cello, flute, and other instruments, Broderick doesn't perform a cello concerto by Britten or some staple of the classical repertoire on Domes, and neither are the performances designed to showcase virtuosic command. Instead, she expands on the cello's natural sound using loops and presumably other effects to generate engulfing masses of sound.

In all probability Domes wouldn't have happened in the absence of the pandemic. Like many other artists, Broderick's professional life was altered by its onset, and she felt the need to devise coping strategies to deal with the chaos and turbulence it wrought. One way to deal with it involved beginning and ending her day with building basic cello melodies into swelling tapestries. Being within the sound during these meditative sessions engendered feelings of comfort and safety.

After a searing cello figure introduces the recording in “Figura,” the piece oscillates between moments where the instrument's natural timbres dominate and others where it's consumed by a billowing cloud mass. The tension between those poles is present throughout the forty-one-minute set, with Broderick careful to ensure that no matter how huge the storm generated the identifying character of the instrument remains audible; even when it's multiplied into a wailing choir or transforms into a smoldering geological entity, the cello can still be heard intoning at the centre. Elsewhere, the material pulsates majestically as shards momentarily splinter off before reassembling into a towering mass. As abstract as the music is, a piece such as “Cupola” ululates so powerfully it feels like an all-too-human expression of grief and anguish. Following the heaving, distressed convulsions of “Tor,” “The Bluff” ends the album on a more peaceful note with plaintive expressions that grow ever more supplicating as the music intensifies.

The material at times howls, but its effect isn't abrasive but inviting and ultimately replenishing. Broderick's cathedrals of sound allow for full immersion and prove as protective as the actual architectural structures. The album title, by the way, stems from the idea that domes are comprised of triangles, of which there are seven different kinds. Each piece therefore was conceived with a different figure in mind and designed to offer listeners means by which to achieve a state of rest and clam within themselves. Her distinctive voice doesn't appear, but Domes is arresting nonetheless.

March 2022