Katie English & Mark Kluzek: BEL
Eukaryotic

Listeners familiar with the work Katie English issues under the Isnaj Dui alias could be forgiven for expecting her EP-length collaboration with Australian musician Mark Kluzek (The Doomed Bird of Providence) to include the UK-based artist's signature flute and electronics. BEL therefore comes as something of a surprise, though hardly a displeasing one, for presenting four string quartet pieces composed by the two and recorded last year by Maria Grigoryeva (violins, viola) and Natalia Nazarova (cello). Available as a CD and download, the fourteen-minute release is the debut from English and Kluzek on the Eukaryotic label.

A few words about the project's genesis are in order. Drawing for inspiration from paintings by Australian artist Arthur Boyd, Kluzek created loose piano sketches that were then converted into cello and viola parts. English thereafter added violin patterns, her contributions guided by brief directions from Kluzek regarding themes in the Boyd paintings.

With the release totaling fourteen minutes, each neo-classical piece is a concise string quartet statement, the opener “Dream” a melody-driven exercise in controlled fire and elegant entwining. Speaking of which, “Fire” at first simmers portentously before swelling into an alternately plaintive and cryptic expression. The set's adagio is “Clearing,” whose three lamenting minutes suggest some tangential tie to one of Philip Glass's string quartets. Livelier and playful by comparison, “Blind” concludes the release with dance-fueled figures, folk-tinged melodies, and an ear-catching dive-bomb. Grigoryeva and Nazarova give superb readings of the artists' material, English and Kluzek fortunate to have such talented partners giving voice to their material. BEL constitutes a detour into a different stylistic zone than those the collaborators typically inhabit, but it's no less satisfying for doing so.

January 2023