Tim Linghaus: Memory Sketches
Schole Records / 1631recordings
Every creative work is a form of autobiography, but Memory Sketches is perhaps more explicitly autobiographical than most. True to its title, it's an intensely personal project that Tim Linghaus has used as something of a memory preservation device, so to speak. Recognizing the evanescent and mutable qualities of even the most cherished memory, he compiled a collection of his most life-changing ones, things like returning home after graduation and his dad's funeral, to create the thirty-two-minute suite. A period of twenty years is encompassed by its sixteen parts, from the childhood and adolescent years of the ‘80s and ‘90s to 2002, the year of his father's death.
To evoke the hazy quality of memory, electronic noise and vinyl static are threaded into the presentation, which otherwise largely centers on the dusty sounds of an upright piano; wistful and deeply melancholy, the material's emotional tenor is deepened on occasion by the beautiful playing of cellist Sebastian Selke (e.g., the lovely contributions he makes to “I Was Atoms and Waves”), while analog synthesizer-like treatments establish a direct through-line to the ‘80s. Bolstering the album's intimate feel, the project was recorded over a yearlong span in Linghaus's living room studio.
After “Looking For Dad in Radio Noise” introduces the album with a half-minute of ghostly static, “Coming Home From Graduation, Pt. I (Yearbook)” and “Drive Me Somewhere Nice” establish the project's piano-centric character with pretty miniatures tinged with sadness and speckled subtly with electronic textures; it's not the only time the style surfaces, as “Me in Your Rear-View Mirror (Boys Don't Cry)” and “We Will Never Come Back Here Again (Lament)” also present material that might remind some of music by Nils Frahm, Dustin O'Halloran, and Yann Tiersen. Synth-exclusive vignettes such as “RX” and “Adventure Park” create contrast when inserted in amongst the piano settings.
Like many of us, key moments in Linghaus's life are bound up with the music of a particular era; as his grandmother is being transported to the hospital in an RV, for instance, the sounds of Roxy Music playing in the vehicle become an association that will stay with the moment forever. As affecting as the album is as a whole, for me the most transporting moment arrives with “Into the Darker Architecture of Yours” when its old-school drum sounds and synthesizers so sweetly evoke the nostalgic feeling of late nights from long ago spent walking deserted city streets with friends and hoping the night would never end.
As one would expect from an album (mini-album, more like) that fits sixteen pieces into a half-hour running time, most parts are fleeting in nature, many of them little more than a minute of two in length. Yet the impact of Memory Sketches isn't diminished by its modest duration; Linghaus's elegant material proves affecting in its compact form, especially when its fragile laments are so rich in feeling. In notes accompanying the release, he describes it as a “reflection on time, life, and death,” yet in the same breath rather dismissively states, “On the other hand, it is nothing more than music.” Don't be fooled: for him, Memory Sketches is clearly more than mere sounds; at the very least, one might see this sonic scrapbook as the physical manifestation of a cathartic creative act, not to mention one of profound personal value to its creator.April 2018