Izvrstan klasičarski album gitariste The Nationala i Clogsa u izvedbi Kronos Quarteta.
www.brycedessner.com/#aheym
When you hear the name of guitarist and composer Bryce Dessner, you wouldn't be wrong to think immediately of hugely acclaimed indie-rock outfit . But he's also a stalwart of the new music scene. A collaborator with everyone from , So Percussion and Bang on a Can All-Stars to and , he's the cofounder of the Brassland label and curator of Cincinnati's MusicNOW Festival. So when it came time for a string quartet to invite him to write a piece, it's hardly surprising that it was the that came calling.
Dessner first met the ensemble when he invited them to participate in the "Dark Was The Night" project, a album released four years ago that he produced with his brother and bandmate in The National, Aaron Dessner. "They did this amazing cover of Blind Willie Johnson's 'Dark Was The Night,'" Bryce Dessner says, "and [violinist] David Harrington is such a voracious musical mind, he asked me for a piece that they could perform in Brooklyn in 2009." The result was Aheym — "homeward" in Yiddish.
And what an appropriate title for this music. Kronos premiered Aheym in Brooklyn's Prospect Park, just a few blocks from Dessner's home. But its inspiration comes from even further afield.
"David is so curious about everything," Dessner continues. "He was asking me about my family history, and I told him that my grandmother came from Russia, through Poland. And he told me that Kronos was actually going to play a concert in Lodz, the Polish city of her childhood, and they could play my piece there. And so Aheym became a piece inspired by my grandmother. She actually passed away shortly after the premiere, so though I hadn't intentioned it to be so, Aheym became something of a memorial to her."
Since the premiere in Brooklyn, Kronos has played Aheym about 100 times around the world, by Dessner's estimate. But Dessner, who studied guitar and composition at Yale, points out that Aheym is actually his first work for string quartet. "A classical string quartet is one of the great archetypes of music," he points out, "but also very difficult to write for. It's an amazing unit that can sound like an orchestra, but in some ways it's very unforgiving compositionally — every tiny thing is heard, every voice is so important."
Adding to the pressure was that Aheym was commissioned by one of the most influential groups of the last several decades. "It was a little intimidating to write what was really my first string quartet for Kronos — they're such masters, and so influential for my generation in particular," he says.
The visually dazzling video for Aheymwas made by Matthew Ritchie, one of Dessner's longtime friends and collaborators. A painter and large-scale installation artist, Ritchie made this video by having his paintings animated. "There's a generative, cyclical nature to the music," Dessner observes, "and Matthew's film has this very kinetic energy to it. And it's full of motion, but that motion is abstract — and painterly." That's a good description of Dessner's music as well: full of dense colors and small movements, provocative, powerful and beautiful. The album, also titled Aheym, is being released Nov. 5 on .- Anastasia Tsioulcas
"...of The National" is a phrase that often follows Bryce Dessner's name. It's not too shabby a suffix, but with the November 5 release of his recording debut as a composer, listeners may find that title to be inadequate for his talents (if they haven't already).
Not that Dessner is a stranger to the world of contemporary classical music. His annual Crossing Brooklyn Ferry
festival alternates independent rock, hip hop and Afrobeat with
performances from Brooklyn's fertile indie-classical scene. He studied
composition at Yale, founded the new-music ensemble Clogs and has written for the Brooklyn Youth Chorus and Bang on a Can All-Stars.
This multifaceted experience is on full display with "Aheym" – a collection of four new works performed by the Kronos Quartet. Each piece displays the sort of earnest, transparent beauty found in the music of Arvo Pärt or Philip Glass. And drawing on his own Jewish heritage, the stories behind them are as touching and colorful as the music.
The title work is written to portray the ideas of flight and passage – Aheym means homeward in Yiddish – and it specifically draws on experiences from Dessner's grandparents, who immigrated to New York from Poland and Russia. The repetitive lines are fast and driving, the mood is intense and suspenseful.
Little Blue Something is inspired by a pair of Czech musicians that Dessner's sister Jessica met on a street in Copenhagen. Drawing on what Dessner describes as their "strange and lovely music," the piece combines folk music, minimalism, and direct quotation.
The next track is dedicated to Kronos' lighting designer, Laurence Neff, and named after a Holy Week service called Tenebre. It examines the relationship between music and light while using a variety of texture and layers. Kronos is joined by Sufjan Stevens performing an octet of voices on Hebrew letters.
Tour Eiffel features the Brooklyn Youth Chorus in a setting of a poem by Chilean poet Vicente Huidobro. "I chose it for its musical qualities which include text of a French folk song and solfège syllables as well as images of approaching modernity like 'the electric wing' and 'telegraph antenna,'" writes Dessner, who also appears on the track with his guitar. Percussion, piano, and trombone are also added, and the end product is stunning, nostalgic, and beautifully hypnotic. - Molly Yeh
Bryce Dessner has always been one of the more gifted artists in contemporary music. Along with his twin brother, Aaron, Dessner has made a name for himself by composing wistful, deep-cutting compositions for his full-time gig as guitarist in The National. But when he’s not busy pulling the strings for the New York five-piece (or in his other group, The Clogs), he’s usually busy with some other project or collaboration—whether it be working with Sufjan Stevens, Philip Glass, Steve Reich or Antony (from Antony and the Johnsons), or curating events like Cincinnati’s acclaimed MusicNOW Festival, to name a few.
So when the San Francisco-based Kronos Quartet asked Dessner to collaborate for the Celebrate Brooklyn! festival in 2009, naturally Dessner said yes. (The Kronos Quartet also appeared on the Dessner brothers-helmed compilation Dark Was the Night.) The result was a piece titled “Aheym,” which was inspired by Dessner’s Polish immigrant grandparents, who settled in Brooklyn (the song title means “homeward” in Yiddish). And now Dessner and Kronos have taken that collaboration to the next level, releasing an album comprised of four works oscillating between effusive strings, anxious arrangements, fluid movements and sparse, harrowing vocal work by the Brooklyn Youth Chorus.
From the moment it begins, Aheym pulses with tension. The title track bursts forth with an onslaught of frantic jabs before retreating into a more tempered melody punctuated with strings that swoon and swell. But the tension is always present, lurking just beneath the surface. It’s relieved, if only momentarily, on the sophisticated, sonorous “Little Blue Something” before launching into the anxiety-ridden “Tenebre” (meaning “darkness”), a piece that moves and melds in several different fashions and instances. The strings build and bend, and soon vocals become yet another instrument in the mix, rather than serving as any sort of centerpiece. Meanwhile, the last track, “Tour Eiffel,” starts things off with the choir, before an arsenal of strings, piano, guitar and other instruments are eventually at the helm, feeding into that thickening cloud of perpetual disquiet.
For Dessner, the move from indie rock to classical composition feels like much more than a mere side project. Having earned a master’s degree in music from Yale, Dessner seems made for this type of orchestration, and the collaboration with Kronos, a quartet that has nearly devoted itself to performing contemporary compositions from living composers, feels like a natural fit. The album is both sincere and sinister. Fans hoping for a dose of mellow indie akin to The National won’t find it here. What they will find, however, is a startling classical work that is just as harrowing and heartfelt as the music of Dessner’s indie-rock alter ego, if not more so. And because of that, Aheym is a masterful, soul-scourging work. -Michael Danaher
The National guitarist Bryce Dessner was first commissioned by The Kronos Quartet to write something for a 2009 Brooklyn festival. "Aheym" – Yiddish for "Homeward" – was the result, a piece celebrating his immigrant grandparents' settling in the borough decades earlier. Opening with urgent triplets, it settles into an elegant braiding of interlaced lines that push the music forward in waves. The commission led to the three other pieces here. "Tenebre" is also informed by Dessner's roots in the New York contemporary tradition, its interlinking phrases giving way to string and vocal drones. The breezy "Tour Eiffel" adds piano to the string and vocal textures, while "Little Blue Something" emulates the resonant timbre of viola da gamba players.- Andy Gill
“[Dessner is a] deft guitarist-composer.”—The New York Times
“Kronos proved that the string quartet, long the most self-consciously ‘classical’ of classical
The vision and dream is there for the self-titled piece off the record, ultimately the strongest of Dessner’s three compositions. Raging for thirteen minutes, the opening composition is a bounty full of high-energy strings and passively aggressive flutes that takes more of a liking to more cinematic features of epic proportions. Bryce and his twin brother Aaron’s guitars intermittently appear on the piece using more rhythmic delay methods, causing a very attractive, isolated ambient effect. Dessner in all his creative prowless is top notch here, as St. Carolyn by the Sea is relentless and incredibly powerful in imagination. The opening composition’s continuously peaking narrative is gripping in its allure and ultimately shows the orchestral style that Dessner is best at.
While St. Carolyn by the Sea is splendid and vivid in its imagery, the rest of Dessner’s compositions drag with a never-ending race of chasing strings.
“Lachrimae” starts aptly alluring enough but eventually becomes more of a drawn-out and overstretched length of soaring strings to no true appeasing point. Eventually, while the adrenaline never stops and the fast-intensity of strings remains firm, the sense of a melodic touch is completely lost. ”Lachrimae” is too much, too soon with no true direction. Everyone loves a car chase scene but make it too long and it starts to get boring and in the case of ”Lachrimae,” it gets boring real quick.
Dessner’s final composition “Raphael” again starts innocently enough but opposite from the case of ”Lachrimae,” the momentum is more subdued and downplayed. And again in contrast to the never-ending chase of ”Lachrimae,” ”Raphael” is more a straight forward monotone movement – a very long guessing game of what’s next. Quite frankly, the mystic and Fantasia-esque winds of “Raphael” wear out fast and the incredibly long gasps for peak gets old real fast. It’s not a matter of taste, but the dullness behind “Raphael,” even by the time Dessner’s refreshingly ambient guitar comes in, is too much of a buzzkill. “Raphael” eventually pans out to bring more energy toward its latter half but the exhaustive opening minutes doesn’t really give a chance for the composition to round out on an average level.
The record also includes Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead’s full Suite from the film There Will Be Blood. If you heard it before and you’re a fan, then the more complete, extended version will ultimately be your buying point for this record. But for everyone else, it’s not not all that memorable to have warranted inclusion on this record. Evaluating simply just the new works from Dessner however, with the exception of the stellar title piece, there’s not much to be excited about.
- See more at: http://www.altoriot.com/reviews/bryce-dessner-st-carolyn-by-the-sea/#sthash.xx506imz.dpuf
Bryce Dessner – St. Carolyn By the Sea (2014)
Coming off the stellar recording Aheym with the
Kronos Quartet, The National’s Bryce Dessner quickly follows it up with an
ambitious but ultimately mediocre collection of orchestral works.
The vision and dream is there for the self-titled piece off the record, ultimately the strongest of Dessner’s three compositions. Raging for thirteen minutes, the opening composition is a bounty full of high-energy strings and passively aggressive flutes that takes more of a liking to more cinematic features of epic proportions. Bryce and his twin brother Aaron’s guitars intermittently appear on the piece using more rhythmic delay methods, causing a very attractive, isolated ambient effect. Dessner in all his creative prowless is top notch here, as St. Carolyn by the Sea is relentless and incredibly powerful in imagination. The opening composition’s continuously peaking narrative is gripping in its allure and ultimately shows the orchestral style that Dessner is best at.
While St. Carolyn by the Sea is splendid and vivid in its imagery, the rest of Dessner’s compositions drag with a never-ending race of chasing strings.
“Lachrimae” starts aptly alluring enough but eventually becomes more of a drawn-out and overstretched length of soaring strings to no true appeasing point. Eventually, while the adrenaline never stops and the fast-intensity of strings remains firm, the sense of a melodic touch is completely lost. ”Lachrimae” is too much, too soon with no true direction. Everyone loves a car chase scene but make it too long and it starts to get boring and in the case of ”Lachrimae,” it gets boring real quick.
Dessner’s final composition “Raphael” again starts innocently enough but opposite from the case of ”Lachrimae,” the momentum is more subdued and downplayed. And again in contrast to the never-ending chase of ”Lachrimae,” ”Raphael” is more a straight forward monotone movement – a very long guessing game of what’s next. Quite frankly, the mystic and Fantasia-esque winds of “Raphael” wear out fast and the incredibly long gasps for peak gets old real fast. It’s not a matter of taste, but the dullness behind “Raphael,” even by the time Dessner’s refreshingly ambient guitar comes in, is too much of a buzzkill. “Raphael” eventually pans out to bring more energy toward its latter half but the exhaustive opening minutes doesn’t really give a chance for the composition to round out on an average level.
The record also includes Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead’s full Suite from the film There Will Be Blood. If you heard it before and you’re a fan, then the more complete, extended version will ultimately be your buying point for this record. But for everyone else, it’s not not all that memorable to have warranted inclusion on this record. Evaluating simply just the new works from Dessner however, with the exception of the stellar title piece, there’s not much to be excited about.
This multifaceted experience is on full display with "Aheym" – a collection of four new works performed by the Kronos Quartet. Each piece displays the sort of earnest, transparent beauty found in the music of Arvo Pärt or Philip Glass. And drawing on his own Jewish heritage, the stories behind them are as touching and colorful as the music.
The title work is written to portray the ideas of flight and passage – Aheym means homeward in Yiddish – and it specifically draws on experiences from Dessner's grandparents, who immigrated to New York from Poland and Russia. The repetitive lines are fast and driving, the mood is intense and suspenseful.
Little Blue Something is inspired by a pair of Czech musicians that Dessner's sister Jessica met on a street in Copenhagen. Drawing on what Dessner describes as their "strange and lovely music," the piece combines folk music, minimalism, and direct quotation.
The next track is dedicated to Kronos' lighting designer, Laurence Neff, and named after a Holy Week service called Tenebre. It examines the relationship between music and light while using a variety of texture and layers. Kronos is joined by Sufjan Stevens performing an octet of voices on Hebrew letters.
Tour Eiffel features the Brooklyn Youth Chorus in a setting of a poem by Chilean poet Vicente Huidobro. "I chose it for its musical qualities which include text of a French folk song and solfège syllables as well as images of approaching modernity like 'the electric wing' and 'telegraph antenna,'" writes Dessner, who also appears on the track with his guitar. Percussion, piano, and trombone are also added, and the end product is stunning, nostalgic, and beautifully hypnotic. - Molly Yeh
Bryce Dessner has always been one of the more gifted artists in contemporary music. Along with his twin brother, Aaron, Dessner has made a name for himself by composing wistful, deep-cutting compositions for his full-time gig as guitarist in The National. But when he’s not busy pulling the strings for the New York five-piece (or in his other group, The Clogs), he’s usually busy with some other project or collaboration—whether it be working with Sufjan Stevens, Philip Glass, Steve Reich or Antony (from Antony and the Johnsons), or curating events like Cincinnati’s acclaimed MusicNOW Festival, to name a few.
So when the San Francisco-based Kronos Quartet asked Dessner to collaborate for the Celebrate Brooklyn! festival in 2009, naturally Dessner said yes. (The Kronos Quartet also appeared on the Dessner brothers-helmed compilation Dark Was the Night.) The result was a piece titled “Aheym,” which was inspired by Dessner’s Polish immigrant grandparents, who settled in Brooklyn (the song title means “homeward” in Yiddish). And now Dessner and Kronos have taken that collaboration to the next level, releasing an album comprised of four works oscillating between effusive strings, anxious arrangements, fluid movements and sparse, harrowing vocal work by the Brooklyn Youth Chorus.
From the moment it begins, Aheym pulses with tension. The title track bursts forth with an onslaught of frantic jabs before retreating into a more tempered melody punctuated with strings that swoon and swell. But the tension is always present, lurking just beneath the surface. It’s relieved, if only momentarily, on the sophisticated, sonorous “Little Blue Something” before launching into the anxiety-ridden “Tenebre” (meaning “darkness”), a piece that moves and melds in several different fashions and instances. The strings build and bend, and soon vocals become yet another instrument in the mix, rather than serving as any sort of centerpiece. Meanwhile, the last track, “Tour Eiffel,” starts things off with the choir, before an arsenal of strings, piano, guitar and other instruments are eventually at the helm, feeding into that thickening cloud of perpetual disquiet.
For Dessner, the move from indie rock to classical composition feels like much more than a mere side project. Having earned a master’s degree in music from Yale, Dessner seems made for this type of orchestration, and the collaboration with Kronos, a quartet that has nearly devoted itself to performing contemporary compositions from living composers, feels like a natural fit. The album is both sincere and sinister. Fans hoping for a dose of mellow indie akin to The National won’t find it here. What they will find, however, is a startling classical work that is just as harrowing and heartfelt as the music of Dessner’s indie-rock alter ego, if not more so. And because of that, Aheym is a masterful, soul-scourging work. -Michael Danaher
The National guitarist Bryce Dessner was first commissioned by The Kronos Quartet to write something for a 2009 Brooklyn festival. "Aheym" – Yiddish for "Homeward" – was the result, a piece celebrating his immigrant grandparents' settling in the borough decades earlier. Opening with urgent triplets, it settles into an elegant braiding of interlaced lines that push the music forward in waves. The commission led to the three other pieces here. "Tenebre" is also informed by Dessner's roots in the New York contemporary tradition, its interlinking phrases giving way to string and vocal drones. The breezy "Tour Eiffel" adds piano to the string and vocal textures, while "Little Blue Something" emulates the resonant timbre of viola da gamba players.- Andy Gill
“[Dessner is a] deft guitarist-composer.”—The New York Times
“Kronos proved that the string quartet, long the most self-consciously ‘classical’ of classical
ensembles, could become a kind of all-terrain vehicle in contemporary culture. Early on, they
made a near-total commitment to living composers…Kronos is notable for its global vision.”
—The New Yorker
NPR Music is premiering the title track and video from Aheym, the upcoming collaboration
between critically acclaimed guitarist from The National and composer Bryce Dessner and
Grammy Award-winning Kronos Quartet. The video, directed by visual artist and longtime
Dessner collaborator Matthew Ritchie, can streamed/shared at http://n.pr/16nzt0n. Ritchie
previously worked with Dessner on performance pieces “The Long Count,” “Monstrance,” “The
Morning Line” and more.
Due November 5 on Anti- Records, Aheym features four original compositions by Dessner—
who has previously collaborated with Steve Reich, Philip Glass, David Lang, Sufjan Stevens and
many others—performed by Kronos as well as an appearance by the Brooklyn Youth Chorus.
Dessner and the quartet first crossed paths when Kronos founder David Harrington approached
Dessner about writing a piece for the quartet’s performance at the Celebrate Brooklyn! festival at
Brooklyn’s Prospect Park in 2009. The ensuing piece, “Aheym” (meaning “homeward” in
Yiddish), was informed by the stories of Dessner’s Jewish immigrant grandparents who settled
near the park and, as the pair’s collaboration grew, became the album’s title track.
Aheym also includes a performance dedicated to Laurence Neff, Kronos Quartet’s lighting
designer of 25 years (“Tenebre”); a composition influenced by obscure Czech viola da gamba
performers Irena and Vojtěch Havel (“Little Blue Something”); and “Tour Eiffel,” a setting of a
poem by Chilean poet Vicente Huidobro that was originally commissioned by the Brooklyn
Youth Chorus (which perform the track on Aheym alongside Kronos Quartet) at the suggestion of
Dessner’s close friend, composer Nico Muhly.
Best known for his work with Brooklyn-based rock group The National, Bryce Dessner is also a
founding member of the group Clogs and founder/curator of Cincinnati’s acclaimed MusicNOW
Festival. Graduating from Yale University with a master’s degree in music, Dessner serves as a
composer-in-residence at Muziekgebouw Frits Philips in Eindhoven, Netherlands, produced the
Red Hot AIDS charity compilation Dark Was the Night with his brother and The National
bandmate Aaron, curated the Crossing Brooklyn Ferry music festival for the Brooklyn Academy
of Music (also with Aaron) and has performed alongside Steve Reich, Nico Muhly, Sufjan
Stevens, Radiohead’s Johnny Greenwood and many others.
The San Francisco-based Kronos Quartet has made a name for themselves across multiple
genres, performing alongside artists including Tom Waits, Asha Bhosle, Paul McCartney, Allen
Ginsberg, David Bowie and Wu Man. They have also collaborated with a long list of composers
including Philip Glass, Laurie Anderson, John Adams, Steve Reich, Meredith Monk and Terry
Riley. The group is currently celebrating its 40th anniversary with coast-to-coast birthday
concerts, a host of premieres, a Nonesuch CD boxed set and performances around the globe. The
non-profit Kronos Performing Arts Association manages all aspects of Kronos’ work, including
the commissioning of new works, concert tours and home-season performances and education
programs.
Update:
Bryce Dessner – St. Carolyn By the Sea
Coming off the stellar recording Aheym with the Kronos Quartet, The National’s Bryce Dessner quickly follows it up with an ambitious but ultimately mediocre collection of orchestral works.The vision and dream is there for the self-titled piece off the record, ultimately the strongest of Dessner’s three compositions. Raging for thirteen minutes, the opening composition is a bounty full of high-energy strings and passively aggressive flutes that takes more of a liking to more cinematic features of epic proportions. Bryce and his twin brother Aaron’s guitars intermittently appear on the piece using more rhythmic delay methods, causing a very attractive, isolated ambient effect. Dessner in all his creative prowless is top notch here, as St. Carolyn by the Sea is relentless and incredibly powerful in imagination. The opening composition’s continuously peaking narrative is gripping in its allure and ultimately shows the orchestral style that Dessner is best at.
While St. Carolyn by the Sea is splendid and vivid in its imagery, the rest of Dessner’s compositions drag with a never-ending race of chasing strings.
“Lachrimae” starts aptly alluring enough but eventually becomes more of a drawn-out and overstretched length of soaring strings to no true appeasing point. Eventually, while the adrenaline never stops and the fast-intensity of strings remains firm, the sense of a melodic touch is completely lost. ”Lachrimae” is too much, too soon with no true direction. Everyone loves a car chase scene but make it too long and it starts to get boring and in the case of ”Lachrimae,” it gets boring real quick.
Dessner’s final composition “Raphael” again starts innocently enough but opposite from the case of ”Lachrimae,” the momentum is more subdued and downplayed. And again in contrast to the never-ending chase of ”Lachrimae,” ”Raphael” is more a straight forward monotone movement – a very long guessing game of what’s next. Quite frankly, the mystic and Fantasia-esque winds of “Raphael” wear out fast and the incredibly long gasps for peak gets old real fast. It’s not a matter of taste, but the dullness behind “Raphael,” even by the time Dessner’s refreshingly ambient guitar comes in, is too much of a buzzkill. “Raphael” eventually pans out to bring more energy toward its latter half but the exhaustive opening minutes doesn’t really give a chance for the composition to round out on an average level.
The record also includes Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead’s full Suite from the film There Will Be Blood. If you heard it before and you’re a fan, then the more complete, extended version will ultimately be your buying point for this record. But for everyone else, it’s not not all that memorable to have warranted inclusion on this record. Evaluating simply just the new works from Dessner however, with the exception of the stellar title piece, there’s not much to be excited about.
- See more at: http://www.altoriot.com/reviews/bryce-dessner-st-carolyn-by-the-sea/#sthash.xx506imz.dpuf
Bryce Dessner – St. Carolyn By the Sea (2014)
Coming off the stellar recording Aheym with the
Kronos Quartet, The National’s Bryce Dessner quickly follows it up with an
ambitious but ultimately mediocre collection of orchestral works.The vision and dream is there for the self-titled piece off the record, ultimately the strongest of Dessner’s three compositions. Raging for thirteen minutes, the opening composition is a bounty full of high-energy strings and passively aggressive flutes that takes more of a liking to more cinematic features of epic proportions. Bryce and his twin brother Aaron’s guitars intermittently appear on the piece using more rhythmic delay methods, causing a very attractive, isolated ambient effect. Dessner in all his creative prowless is top notch here, as St. Carolyn by the Sea is relentless and incredibly powerful in imagination. The opening composition’s continuously peaking narrative is gripping in its allure and ultimately shows the orchestral style that Dessner is best at.
While St. Carolyn by the Sea is splendid and vivid in its imagery, the rest of Dessner’s compositions drag with a never-ending race of chasing strings.
“Lachrimae” starts aptly alluring enough but eventually becomes more of a drawn-out and overstretched length of soaring strings to no true appeasing point. Eventually, while the adrenaline never stops and the fast-intensity of strings remains firm, the sense of a melodic touch is completely lost. ”Lachrimae” is too much, too soon with no true direction. Everyone loves a car chase scene but make it too long and it starts to get boring and in the case of ”Lachrimae,” it gets boring real quick.
Dessner’s final composition “Raphael” again starts innocently enough but opposite from the case of ”Lachrimae,” the momentum is more subdued and downplayed. And again in contrast to the never-ending chase of ”Lachrimae,” ”Raphael” is more a straight forward monotone movement – a very long guessing game of what’s next. Quite frankly, the mystic and Fantasia-esque winds of “Raphael” wear out fast and the incredibly long gasps for peak gets old real fast. It’s not a matter of taste, but the dullness behind “Raphael,” even by the time Dessner’s refreshingly ambient guitar comes in, is too much of a buzzkill. “Raphael” eventually pans out to bring more energy toward its latter half but the exhaustive opening minutes doesn’t really give a chance for the composition to round out on an average level.
The record also includes Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead’s full Suite from the film There Will Be Blood. If you heard it before and you’re a fan, then the more complete, extended version will ultimately be your buying point for this record. But for everyone else, it’s not not all that memorable to have warranted inclusion on this record. Evaluating simply just the new works from Dessner however, with the exception of the stellar title piece, there’s not much to be excited about.
Bryce Dessner
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