Music of the River
When you sit at a nice big piano and hold down the sustain pedal with your foot, and then play a chord, there is this sound made. Keep your foot pressing down on the sustain pedal and after the chord itself happens, that sound sort of lingers in the air for a few moments. Using studio magic that particular sound can be made to go on and on, instead of fading in a few moments. This whole album has a magical river sound all throughout. I like to call a "glow" because to me it just sounds so darned wonderful and I cannot think of a better word for such a sound that does not feel like something found in a laboratory textbook or science manual. Perhaps spatially sustained reverberation? For me, the word "glow" works much better, even if it means something visual instead of describing an audio quality. It sort of lingers in the air and just sounds florescent at times.
The music floats up into the air and shimmers, hanging there like an Aurora Borealis just above the speakers. A sound that is timeless, easy gentle refreshing and certainly restful. No hurry anywhere on this album no driving rhythm or beat, no percussion, nothing like that. The compositions have very few notes, very simple, sustained open melodies, always slowly repeating and easy, like daydreaming clouds. Like a distant mountain mirage, huge and steady. The instruments are all held deep in the glowing sound of the ambient reverberation haze. There are keyboards ranging from what sounds to me like a huge stadium-sized piano to a whimsical harmonium, plus an actual acordion, and of course synthesizers, lush and rich in timbre and tone. Each song has lots of extra silence in the distance between one ending and one beginning. There might be just four notes played on the entire album, over and over again like waves on the shore, and they are ample. It works perfectly, just what the medicine man ordered. Relax. It is also good for your blood pressure too. Listen for yourself! Breathe out and soar into beauty.
Tom Eaton plays piano, synths, acoustic and electric guitars, fretted and fretless basses, accordion, and percussion on this album, which has the title How it Happened and is his first release on the Spotted Peccary Music label.
If you are a fan of Windham Hill recordings you have probably already heard some of his work, since about 2010 he has produced albums with Will Ackerman. He does the fancy behind-the-scenes studio stuff, twiddling the knobs on the board in the back, as well as sometimes sitting in the front on sessions and actually playing some instruments for sessions. How it Happened is what he considers to be his third major solo album. The first two are not his first ever, but he likes to draw the line there. The albums are Abendromen (2016), the first part of the title is German, “Abend" which means evening, and “Dromen" is Dutch for dreams. That album was followed very shortly afterwards by Indesterren (2016), which is Dutch for “into the stars.” Plus there is a single, "Matjora is Still Alive" (2018), which is a cover of a Johannes Schmolling (Tangerine Dream) delight. All three of these recordings are on his own label, Riverwide. These are all piano based, with lots of fancy production work for an amazing and distinguished polished sound.
Let's get back to How it Happened, which is a title that makes me think both of just telling the story, and there could be someone explaining something that possibly went a little wrong, or perhaps it is the title for a thoughtful comedy sketch. The sound is very polished and elegant, breathless even. Delicate. Delicious! So the name becomes a speculative part of the story. He does not do the energizing beat thing, which is refreshing. Often there are only a few blending notes, played very slowly and perfectly, repeating as your thoughts are allowed to soar and sparkle. The pictures in the little booklet that comes with the album show the surface of a river in the wintertime with some floating sheets of ice, no snow, but the vegetation is cold and brown, far from spring or summer in appearance. The music is cold and pure, but not dramatically so. Some of the details are tiny and delicate and the sound is very simple, all of the feeling is calm and refreshing. Restful and engaging. It is a fantastic album for dreaming!
A cracking sound like ice breaking, heard from deep under the water. The music drifts in from the void, synthesizer and piano with rare odd celestial crackles and an ethereal distant angelic choir, the first song is "Ice" 5:37
Synthesizer keyboards with piano steadily developing in complexity, but overall very hazy and cloudy, and shimmering. "An Unexpected Opening" 7:58 continues the introduction of this album with a distant easy pace. It glides into ringing tones with partial melodies that glow, reverberation lingering, chords break and then fade. Tones play in a slow dance, a few notes and then they hang there reverberating, then a few more notes. This takes away the hurry and allows you to relax and let go of your tension.
The title piece, "MK, And How It Happened" 7:19 presents a further evolution of the album's developing subdued melody concept, piano tones with synth glow lingering overhead and an electric guitar with celestial processing is eventually joined by a drifting accordion. I hear haunting memories and sad recollections under tons of reverberation and echoes. This is also very slow in the pace and progression as the song unfolds.
"The Slow River" 9:21 progresses with sustained tones layers of synth frost piano in there too. The sound is all deep and in slow motion. "Later, At Night, By the Lake" 6:58 begins with sort of high pitched bell reverberations also synth glow the music of a night sky with all the stars very bright deep dark beyond the silver moon the sound of magic. An ethereal choir in the distance just singing one note a hint of synthesizer to frame it this extends the magical spell created by the previous mood slowly some kind of strings or keyboard forms a repeating pattern infinitive past participle. The word "Genezen" 13:01 means to return home to recover, to heal (an old Dutch Proto Germanic language in what is currently Germany, Denmark, and Scandinavia) and finishes with extended section featuring a few notes over and over again repeating notes a melody here slow of course piano and synthesizer and ambient electric guitar.
A gentle soft glow of a shimmering synthesizer fades back into deep silence piano emerges after that encased in the slow soft glow now the synth slides forward, The title is "The Fog and the Lifting" 6:25 and now the piano is ahead, gentle is the right word. An electric guitar with lots of processing slides in and about gentle and slow then it fades back into deep silence sustained slowly drifting it never goes completely silent but it does slow down and darkens.
There is no time. You just float, synthesizer with piano and sometimes it sounds to me like a harmonium. "Until Her Eyelids Flutter Open" 13:47
Tracks
1. Ice
2. An Unexpected Opening
3. Mk, And How It Happened
4. The Slow River
5. Later, At Night, By the Lake
6. Genezen
7. The Fog and the Lifting
8. Until Her Eyelids Flutter Open
The album is available from Spotted Peccary Music:
https://spottedpeccary.com/shop/how-it-happened/
https://spottedpeccary.com/artists/tom-eaton/
Originally published April 19, 2019
#TomEaton #ThomasEaton #newage #ambientmusic #SpottedPeccary #instrumental #electronicmusic
Comments
Post a Comment