Bob Holroyd: The Cage
Real World Works

Chances are you've heard Bob Holroyd's music, even if his name doesn't ring a bell. In addition to the numerous studio and remix albums he's issued, material by the UK-based composer has appeared in film and TV productions such as The Dark Knight, Lost, True Blood, and The Sopranos, and Coldcut, Four Tet, Mogwai, Loop Guru, and Steve Roach are but five of the artists who've remixed his material. Previous releases have proved challenging to pigeonholers for not slotting easily into any one category, and The Cage perpetuates that trend with twelve tracks that straddle multiple genres. Stylistically, Holroyd's atmospheric music invites ambient-electronic and minimal classical labels, but in terms of mood and tone much of it exudes the soothing character of New Age; further to that, the presence of acoustic guitar lends the material a folk dimension, and there's even, surprisingly, a subtle hint of a noise dimension. Regardless of the stylistic designation affixed to it, The Cage is distinguished by a number of lovely, quietly uplifting tracks that are swoon-worthy in the extreme (“Into the Light” and “If Ever There Was a Time,” for example), and it's these intensely affecting pieces in particular that recommend the release.

Holroyd plays piano, synthesizers, and electric guitar on the album, but the material is enhanced considerably by the participation of guests, specifically bassist Lawrence Cottle, horn player Kevin Robinson, guitarist Craig Joiner, and especially cellist Peter Gregson, who has himself issued a number of exceptional recordings, some, including 2015's Touch, reviewed by textura. Though the instruments featured on The Cage are all ‘real' and organic, electronic treatments have been applied judiciously to enhance the sound design; in some instances, Holroyd has slowed a track down or altered its pitch, though always with a particular musical effect the guiding principle. As his writing has evolved, so too has his way of thinking about his productions; by his own admission, he now thinks of them as ‘sound collages' more than conventional compositions. Yet even that term can be misleading, suggesting as it does an absence of song structure and melodic essence, both of which are present in many of the twelve pieces, no matter how much texture is emphasized. Holroyd's music resists simple delineation and is much more intuitive and organic than one might expect.

That aforementioned soothing tone is instated from the first moment when a simple piano figure locks into position during “Inner Mind Sigh” and is then sweetened with the gentle sounds of acoustic guitar picking. Much as it does elsewhere, a lovely, three- or four-note chord progression gradually emerges within the composition to deepen the music's serenading effect and nudge it away from soundscaping in its established form. Whereas a setting such as “Possibilities” does assume the form of an ambient setting (albeit in miniature form), most of the productions include fragile wisps of melody that lend them a New Age quality. In a painterly setting so arresting it invites comparison to Mark Isham's Castalia, fretless bass playing (presumably Cottle's) helps distinguish “Falling Together” from the other pieces; “Longing” and the title track are distinguished as much, though in these cases by the resplendent sound of Gregson's cello. While a rawer quality surfaces during the quietly transcendent “Into the Light” when electric guitar textures appear alongside delicate acoustic strums, softly glimmering electronic treatments, and piano chords, an insistent rhythmic pulsation so animates “Woven” one's tempted to characterize it ambient-techno.

April 2018