Articles
Terrence Dixon
Ten Favourite Labels 2012
Albums
1982 + BJ Cole
Oren Ambarchi
Balmorhea
Alexander Berne
Born Gold
Carlyle & Cox
Kate Carr and Gail Priest
Paul Corley
Deison
Roland Etzin
Yuichiro Fujimoto
Glissando
Godspeed You! Bl. Emp.
Ivar Grydeland
Hakimonu
Hammock
Sophie Hutchings
Kane Ikin
Jeanne Jolly
Paul Mac
Michael Mayer
David Michael
Moskus
David Newlyn
No Regular Play
Numina
Oskar Offermann
Olan Mill
Padna
Pelt
Rone
Roomful of Teeth
Bruno Sanfilippo
Valgeir Sigurdsson
The Sleep Of Reason
Jessica Sligter
Slow Dancing Society
Prins Thomas
The Use Of Ashes
Maarten van der Vleuten
Stian Westerhus
Wires Under Tension
Woolfy vs. Projections
Reissue
William Basinski
EPs
Elektro Guzzi
Glacis
Porya Hatami
Maps & Diagrams
Stephan Mathieu
Michael Trommer
Glacis:
Music for the Animation Tohu Va Vohu
mini50
Though short at sixteen minutes, the four tracks on Edinburgh musician Euan McMeeken's latest Glacis offering leave a strong impression. A follow-up to his 2011 debut EP, Lost Again on Waking – A Project in Music & Photography (Fluid Audio), Music for the Animation Tohu Va Vohu features solo piano and piano-with-strings settings of markedly elegiac character. The animation project by artist Jamie Mills deals with how the world is made up of chaotic and cyclical patterns, but you'll find precious little chaos on McMeeken's EP.
McMeeken's melodic gifts are on full display in the four pieces, with “Spring/Summer” offering up a particularly affecting series of wistful piano reflections, along with the subtle enhancement of cello textures by Guy Gelem. The melancholy piano setting “Be Silent. Be Still” invites comparison to Nils Frahm for how close it brings the listener to not only the piano playing but all of the attendant sounds that go along with it—various creaks and the action of the instrument itself. Suitably lugubrious in tone, “Autumn/Winter,” with its pensive piano patterns embedded within chilly atmospheric textures, suggests the draining away of summer's splendour in anticipation of the barrenness of fall and the onset of winter's deep freeze. McMeeken's sensitive handling of mood and tempo modulation is clearly evident throughout this fine if modest (in duration, that is) sampling of his artistry.November 2012