Graze the Bell is a collection of soul-stirring, mesmerizing solo piano pieces, and the most distilled offering of David Moore's artistry to date. Known for his atmospheric compositions with Bing & Ruth, as well as his collaborations with guitarist Steve Gunn and Cowboy Sadness, this marks Moore's first widely shared solo piano album. Like the album's cover-a photograph that Moore embroidered by hand-the music abstracts personal experiences into transcendent impressions. Using his piano to meditatively inquire into the human condition, Moore's Graze the Bell is a sanctuary of sound. Across their numerous releases, Bing & Ruth frequently changed shape and sound, swelling to a fifteen-piece group and holistically arriving at a trio configuration. Their most recent album Species foregrounded Moore's Farfisa playing, while a subsequent EP of the same name featured his solo interpretations of the record. This long arc of distillation has always centered on Moore's composition for, and comprehension of, the piano. After two decades of acclaimed ensemble work, Graze the Bell's appearance is a full circle moment, a coming home-not simply to a place or time, but to a luminous center that transcends both. Some of the material on Graze the Bell was originally planned for a Bing & Ruth album, but it was ultimately reimagined as a solo undertaking. Using only the piano, Moore sought to expand upon the reliable methods he developed over the years. "I want to keep growing," he says, "and challenge dogmatic ways of thinking." Actively embracing experimentation and seeking a deeper presence in his playing, he reassessed his relationship to the piano and to life. While Moore's music is based on composed notations and draws from life experiences, the source of his inspiration remains more ineffable. Consciously nurturing the latter, he developed a natural ability to tune into a trance-like state. Moore can sit down with that intention, "and within a few seconds," he is "totally there." From the first note to the last, the album is grounded in the breathtaking tone of a "beastly" 1987 Hamburg Steinway Model D. This is partly to do with his subtle playing style, which at times touches upon silence. Moore's graceful approach gives space to the sound, revealing hues of the piano that many players would habitually ignore. Such nuances were nurtured in the process of recording the album at the renowned Oktaven Audio in Mt. Vernon, New York. The tone of the studio's Steinway was vividly captured by the production guidance of Grammy Award-winning Ben Kane with assistance from Owen Mulholland. Reinforcing Moore's experimental approach, they creatively misused pitch-correcting software to orchestrate the different registers of the piano's tonal profile.
Following the compass of an entrancing debut, Flore Laurentienne's Volume II presents another palette of rich orchestral sound, where changing forces of water inspire metaphorical markers that navigate passages of life and loss. Mathieu David Gagnon resumes his voyage into environment and emotion with Volume II, drawing inspiration from the rivers and rugged wilderness of the composer's native Quebec. In his return as Flore Laurentienne - the namesake of an inventory documenting St. Lawrence Valley flora - Gagnon assembles vivid melodic motifs and delicate modulation with a vast string ensemble to emulate the tides of human experience. Listeners of Volume I will recognise Gagnon's signature approach towards reworking and reframing an emblematic melody or concept across a series of works in Volume II, a process he likens to that of a painter creating multiple sketches of the same view. Continued from the first album, the enigmatic "Fleuve" series is conjured to evoke the multiple personalities of the great St. Lawrence River, and the "Navigation" works ("III" and "IV") wade through dappled progressions and expansive streams of string, the latter of which harbors the gentle meanderings of improvised clarinet. In the world of Flore Laurentienne, complexity emerges from simplicity as the composer roams familiar environments in constant flux. Gagnon extracts beauty through repetition and constraint, utilizing the writing style of counterpoint for which one of his greatest musical inspirations, Johann Sebastian Bach, is renowned. The lilting waves of "Canon" possess the eponymous formation of melodic 'leader and follower' motif, and magnify the softness of the album's eighteen string musicians into a force of full euphoric resonance. In Volume II, Gagnon continues his expansion of classical composition archetypes to meet a new realm of sonic romanticism. Thematic conventions of wandering the pastoral sublime become altered into glimmering refractions, relaying the emotional and kinetic power of natural energies. Volume II forms an estuary where streams of auditory microcosm reach a horizon of dynamic contrast, and reflect the parallel tenors of nature and humankind. Flore Laurentienne's Volume II will be released October 21, 2022 via RVNG Intl. And Costume Records. A portion of the proceeds from the album will again benefit The Saint-Laurent Action Fund, which promotes the conservation of ecosystems and the maintenance of uses of the St. Lawrence River and it's Gulf by supporting projects for the preservation, enhancement and rehabilitation of the river, as well as projects for education and awareness of issues of the St. Lawrence River.
In a Word, the sixteenth installment of the intergenerational collaboration series FRKWYS, brings together postminimalist composer Daniel Lentz with vocalist and sound artist Ian William Craig for an album that embraces erosion and the fertility of the loam left behind. A document of shared transformation, Lentz's elegant piano figures and Craig's trembling tenor are wilted, warbled, and looped through manipulated tape machines in a real time composition that evokes a strange warmth and layered beauty. Six panel fold-out CD edition includes artist essays and photographs.
In a Word, the sixteenth installment of the intergenerational collaboration series FRKWYS, brings together postminimalist composer Daniel Lentz with vocalist and sound artist Ian William Craig for an album that embraces erosion and the fertility of the loam left behind. A document of shared transformation, Lentz's elegant piano figures and Craig's trembling tenor are wilted, warbled, and looped through manipulated tape machines in a real time composition that evokes a strange warmth and layered beauty. Six panel fold-out CD edition includes artist essays and photographs.
