Article
Beginner's Guide to Drum'n'Bass Vol. II
Albums
John Luther Adams
Monty Adkins
Celer
Eric Chenaux
Sarah Davachi
A. Die & Lorenzo Montana
Dikeman / Serries
DinahBird
Ricardo Donoso
Elian
Emika
Terence Fixmer
Hotel Neon
Islands Of Light
Fernando Lagreca
Lake People
K. Leimer
Daniel Lentz
Rudresh Mahanthappa
Tesla Manaf
Metcalf, Roach & Thomas
David Michael / Slavek Kwi
James Murray
Áine O'Dwyer
Fabio Orsi
Matana Roberts
Nadia Shpachenko
simakDialog
Subtle Lip Can
Robert Scott Thompson
Christian Wallumrød
Woven Entity
Yagull
Yodok III
Compilations / Mixes
Joseph Capriati
Nina Kraviz
EPs / Cassettes / DVDs / Mini-Albums / Singles
Anduin
CTRLS
Dexta
Digital, D. Phiz., Response
Igorrr & Ruby My Dear
Rima Kato
Klute
Mako, Villem & Mcleod
Seba
Second Moon Of Winter
Manfred Waffender
Monty Adkins: Borderlands
Audiobulb
Monty Adkins' fourth album for Audiobulb signifies a bit of a departure for the English sound artist. While it retains firm ties to the ambient, electronica, modern classical, and experimental electronic music genres from which his previous work has drawn, it differs in being a single-track meditation of thirty-eight-minute duration. Based on a text by Deborah Templeton that focuses on liminal states of consciousness, Borderlands is primarily modern classical in style and sounds acoustically pure and free of electronics.
However, while the piece appears to be played by a cello section, it's performed by a single musician, cellist William Mace, whose playing has been multi-tracked for the recording. And while on the one hand it plays as a single, continuous piece of orchestral character, technically speaking Borderlands consists of six interludes and six extended panels, each comprising twenty-eight short melodic fragments and each using the same fragments to form new melodies and harmonies. It's likely, however, that the work's formal design will go unnoticed by the greater number of listeners, for the simple reason that their attention will instead be drawn to the luscious sound of Mace's playing and his sympathetic rendering of Adkins' material.
In general, the tempo is slow and stately and the mood peaceful and plaintive, qualities that in turn bolster the recording's immersive potential. Paradoxically, a sense of stasis and time-suspension is achieved by Adkins' meditative music despite the facticity of temporal extension and the myriad melodic events that transpire during the music's unfolding. In one more example of aural sleight-of-hand, the overlapping of high and low pitches generates the impression of a string section containing violins, violas, and cellos as opposed to a cello section only. There are moments of great beauty here, such as when a solo cello line soars gently above a shimmering swell below.
The impact of Adkins' piece is aided greatly by Mace's sensuous performance, which in certain moments gives the piece an affecting emotional quality reminiscent of John Tavener's The Protecting Veil, even if the pieces are much different on formal compositional grounds. That said, it's interesting that the programme notes Tavener provided for his composition could just as easily apply to Borderlands: The Protecting Veil “is an attempt to make a lyrical ikon in sound, rather than in wood, and using the music of the cellist to paint rather than a brush. The music is highly stylized, geometrically formed, and meditative in character.”February 2015