Matt Starling: Music For Nina
Heart Dance Records

Music for Nina is certainly not the first time a composer has created a work inspired by new love. It might be, however, the first time a generative ambient-electronic composition has resulted from the experience. According to Starling, as he and Nina were listening to music, she asked him to create a piece that would capture the blissful union they were experiencing; after she fell asleep, he began working late at night and carried on sleepily for about eighteen hours before exhaustion set in, the fruit of his labour Music for Nina.

The work is available in three digital editions: as a six-minute single, one-hour meditation, and multiple-hour sleep version, the middle one also issued in a CD format. It's a multi-purpose, loops-based creation that renders into musical form the intoxication and rapture one associates with new love; it's also, however, designed to function as a relaxant, spiritual and physical, conducive to meditation and sleep.

Starling assembled dozens of loops into twenty-three groups of varying character, with some focusing on melody and others functioning as drones, motifs, or harmonic material. Reminiscent of Riley's In C, Starling's design allows for maximum variety and flexibility. Though the work begins the same way every time when a loop from each group is synchronized with the others and plays with them, the computer, cued by a probability setting Starling assigned, selects one of two possible actions when the loop reaches its terminus: it'll either repeat the loop or cue a different one. While that allows for any number of permutations, Music for Nina registers as cohesive when a small number of repeating elements ground it, which in turn allows for subtle deviations to occur without compromising the work's essence.

Production methodology aside, how does the material sound? Serene in mood, the piece is lustrous and soothing. A simple electric piano-like phrase intones softly, its intonations gently animated by a lilting rhythm. Radiant synth atmospheres envelop the primary theme, its singing phrase regularly accented by a lovely cascading pattern. A bright, Eno-like synth melody surfaces at one moment, followed by acoustic piano sprinklings reminiscent of the opening track on Music for Airports. The effect of the music is absorbing and immersive, and it sustains engagement when it's packed with multiple textures and layers. Though no one would mistake Starling's piece for one by Satie, some underlying connection to the French composer's Gymnopédies might be discerned in the work's simple, entrancing melodic patterns.

Starling's stated hope is that the piece “might ease anxiety, aid in sleep, promote meditation, and generally offer support to those who are seeking inner peace.” The hour-long iteration certainly accomplishes the first and third goals, while I'm betting the longest treatment would meet the second. Further to that, the serenading character of the material is unquestionably more conducive to inculcating a state of inner peace more than turmoil.

December 2020