James Murray: Falling Backwards
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Falling Backwards is one of the most beautiful ‘electronic' albums I've heard this year; it's undoubtedly one of UK producer James Murray's most fully realized projects. Many an ambient recording derives its impact from textural design; while it's hardly lacking in that department, this one stands out most of all for the beauty of its melodic progressions.
The album title, not surprisingly, has its roots in personal experience, specifically Murray's childhood penchant for, literally, falling backwards when faced with upset of various kinds. Instead of giving in to tantrum, he'd stand upright and let go, something that occurred so often those close to him came to read the signs and intervene before it happened. As is often the case, a diagnosis years later provided a possible explanation for the behaviour, in this instance an infarct at the back of his brain stemming perhaps from historic trauma, the diagnosis itself triggering memories of that earlier propensity and ultimately prompting the production of the album itself. A parallel sense of awakening is expressed by the music, abstractly of course but no less powerful for being so.
Its title carrying with it an autobiographical suggestiveness, “Learning in Reverse” establishes the album's tone with softly thrumming pitches, Murray using electronics, synthesizers, and, I'm guessing, electric guitar to generate a reverberant field of fluttering figures and gauzy, strings-like expressions. Here we're presented with the first of many gorgeous progressions, the track as a whole exuding a gentle, celestial quality that lends it the character of something unearthly and enigmatic yet stirringly beautiful nonetheless. The subsequent piece, “Living Treasure,” is distinguished by the contrast between high-pitched, flute-like timbres and deep, rumbling bass tones, the combination itself accented by glistening bell tones.
Nowhere does that celestial quality emerge more forcefully than during the title setting, a becalmed soundscape whose slow-motion unfurl seems to cast all physical boundaries aside to connect directly to the spirit within. As its melody slowly ascends, it's hard not to think of the soul leaving the body after death, finally at peace and freed from the stresses and struggles of its earthly tenure. Though the title track's the arguable peak, the three settings that follow maintain the wistful, elegiac tone as affectingly, especially when Murray brings such an expertly controlling hand to the music's pacing and design.
Unapologetically ambient in style, his meditations aren't without animation, but it's of the drifting kind; the seven pieces advance according to their natural rhythms, not ones tethered to regulated metre. Though Falling Backwards' sonorities are very much emblematic of ambient-electronic sound practice, it would be interesting to hear its seven compositions transcribed for church organ; my guess is that the music's heavenly qualities would come through even more potently. As Falling Backwards plays, one visualizes Murray comfortably ensconced in his studio, listening to the recording in its finished form at peak volume and giving himself over to its blissful reveries, much as the listener does an ocean away, sharing in the experience with admiration and appreciation for this special creator's remarkable achievement.October 2018