Articles
2009 Artists' Picks
Lymbyc Systym
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Cory Allen
aus
The Bird Ensemble
Canaille
Catlin & Machinefabriek
Greg Davis
Loren Dent
Dirac
Drafted By Minotaurs
Flica
Sarah Goldfarb & JHK
Gown
John Hollenbeck
Viviane Houle
I/DEX
Akira Kosemura
Andrew McKenna Lee
Le Lendemain
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Lymbyc Systym
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Nikasaya
Northerner
nörz
Noveller / Aidan Baker
Redshape
Marina Rosenfeld
Stripmall Architecture
Sturqen
Wes Willenbring
The Tony Wilson Sextet
Julia Wolfe
Peter Wright
Zelienople
Compilations / Mixes
Blackoperator
Glimpse Four:Twenty 03
Kod.eX
Portland Stories
EPs
Molnbär Av John
Tommi Bass & B.B.S.C.
Julian Beau
Colours-Volume 5
Dalot
Echologist
Simon James French
Geiom & Shortstuff
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Geskia
Ernest Gonzales
Gradient
Jacksonville
Joker
Ann Laplantine
Loko
Machinefabriek
Stefano Pilia
Damian Valles
Le Lendemain:
Fires
Home Normal
Home Normal's winning streak continues with this latest project from David Wengrenn, whose Library Tapes' releases have been covered in textura's pages many times. Le Lendemain finds Wengrenn teaming up with Danny Norbury for a half-hour suite of lovely cello-and-piano-based settings subtly augmented in places by field recordings. Though Norbury had actually worked with Wengrenn before on two Library Tapes recordings, Fires is their first full-album collaboration.
Its nine succint settings emphasize misty piano and emotive string playing, with multi-layers of the cello making the material sound more like the product of a chamber group. Furthermore, in its upper register, Norbury's cello sounds as much like a violin as a cello, and consequently the material's timbral range expands beyond the core instruments. Tipping the scales at six minutes, the longest track, Norbury's haunting “Lois,” certainly stands out when it unfolds like a black flower in the spectral gloom, while “Paus” offers a lighter shade in adding a dulcitone to its meditative meander. Like much of Library Tapes' music, Fires is melancholy, fragile, and wistful, its pieces slow and ponderous as opposed to upbeat and high-spirited—which doesn't mean depressing, however; Le Lendemain's pretty and sonorous sound is better described as quietly uplifting.January 2010