Bill Whitley: Absent Light: In Paradisum
Ravello Records

Absent Light: In Paradisum threads elements of multiple genres into its intricate compositional design yet nevertheless achieves a surprising cohesiveness. Issued digitally, the thirty-one-minute recording from composer Bill Whitley is a powerful intoxicant, especially when its serene tone is so seducing. Performed by male soprano, piano, soprano saxophone, trombone, electric bass, electric guitar, celesta, vibraphone, and electronic tanpura, the work unfolds in three parts, with the second a remix of the first and the third a vocals-free treatment of the first.

The composition wasn't born in a single moment but instead developed over seven years, with the grounding loop coming to Whitley in November 2004 and completion reached in the spring of 2011. That loop initially perplexed him for being so engaging despite the fact that, in his words, it “didn't go anywhere or do anything,” and also challenged him when he first began trying to figure out what to do with it. He eventually decided on a subtractive strategy that would see the loop transform by having its notes migrate from the piano to other instruments. Also central to the presentation is the vibraphone, whose seventy-three-beat pattern acts as an undercurrent to the other instruments. All such aspects work together to reinforce the formal coherence of the work's design.

The elegiac tone of the music is consistent with the work's title, as “In paradisum” (“Into paradise”), which derives from the Latin requiem, is sung as a body is transported from the church to the graveyard for burial. The different instruments and the parts they voice allude to numerous genres. Whereas the electronic tanpura played by Giuseppe Olivini, for example, gives the material the peaceful aura of an Indian morning raga, Pietro Bolognini's supplicating vocal establishes a connection to church music; the combination of Elena Talarico's piano and celesta and Stefano Grasso's vibraphone suggests a slowed-down classical minimalism composition. With Francesco Zago's electric bass and guitar delicately woven into the compositional fabric, the music advances in an entrancing lilt, its measured advance regularly punctuated by the stirring sound of Bolognini's voice.

After the opening “Absent Light: In Paradisum” presents the work in its fundamental form, Zago's “In Paradisum” remix presents a deconstruction that's dreamier by comparison. The vibraphone pattern now appears in fragmented form, with vocal parts accentuated, electronic effects subtly applied, and an overall airiness informing the presentation. The closing “Absent Light” instrumental version overlays the electronic tanpura with a piano alap for the first three minutes before reinstating the general character of the work and featuring alternating phrasings by Federico De Zottis on soprano sax and Fedele Stucchi on trombone. As lovely as the opening vocals-based treatments are, the closing one proves as affecting for the lyrical quality of their expressions.

September 2021