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ASTRID & RACHEL GRIMES — Through the Sparkle
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"Through the Sparkle is a collaboration between French ensemble astrd and American pianist and composer Rachel Grimes.
Rachel Grimes is best known for her chamber music project Rachels, a hugely influential group formed in 1991 in Louisville, Kentucky, releasing six studio albums between 1995 and 2005. She has also released a string of contemporary classical works in recent years on labels such as Temporary Residence. astrd is a collective of four musicians based in Nantes, releasing records on Rune Grammofon and Home Normal.
After years of mail and email back and forth over the ocean, from Nantes to Kentucky, astrd invited Rachel to come for a residency to make music together and play shows in France. They gathered for a few days, here and there, in 2012 and 2013 to write songs in Cyril and Vanina's home studio in the countryside.
The compositions found on Through the Sparkle glow with a unique, connected energy and a pure, instinctive musical understanding. Considered contributions from all sides allow the pieces to unfurl naturally. Each note and phrase feels like it simply couldnt be placed anywhere else in the album.
Charming, gentle and cinematic sounds are found here in abundance. Melodies circle and reveal themselves without force, allowing the listener to focus and explore the depths of what is on offer. Musically, Through the Sparkle is an expansive and evocative album. There is a presence to be felt throughout, from Cyril Secqs emotive tremelod guitars of M5 to the darker, more haunting mood of The Theme, to the tension in Mossgrove & Seaweed. Strings and woodwind coalesce around intricate piano and guitar movements creating a wealth of harmony and melancholy.
Through the Sparkle is a record of miniature symphonies, of elegant restraint. A gracious and generous offering from a group of musicians at one with each other and at the top of their game."
www.gizehrecords.com
https://gizehrecords.bandcamp.com/album/through-the-sparkle
"Man, thats devastating! If the reverb-drenched guitar on this records second track doesnt move you to tremble with tears, then the soaring strings on M1 surely will.
Pianist/composer Rachel Grimes follows up her best-of-2015 The Clearing solo outing with the magnificent Through The Sparkle, a seven-song collaboration with the French chamber ensemble Astrd, out today digitally, on CD and on vinyl through U.K.-based Gizeh Records. This things gotta be heard to be believed.
Striking, again, with some of her finest work, Grimes piano flashes more contemporary flourishes than the heart-wrenching Romanticism of her landmark years with Rachels, everyones favorite post-classical ensemble. While there are still gentle, lulling notes Im looking to the album-closing Le Petit Salon and, again, the epic M1 Grimes metronomic figures on The Herald en Masse and Mossgrove & Seaweed positively pulsate with life, lending a record laced with restraint loads of emotional force.
This says nothing of Astrd multi-instrumentalist Vanina Andreani, whose violin wraps its fingers around Grimes ephemeral melodies in much the way Christian Fredericksons viola did in Rachels. Guillaume Wickel is brilliant on bass clarinet, drummer/percussionist Yvan Ros does a fine job anchoring the melancholy, and didnt I already mention the eerie repercussions of Cyril Secqs guitar? This ensemble, featuring Grimes, seems to have a beautiful way of making even the most composed moment seem instinctive, lending a gentle humanity to the proceedings.
There are less classical and more post-classical moments on the record, too, like the haunted The Theme, which starts with an emotive bass clarinet figure and kalimba, and expands, more often through the space between notes than the notes themselves, with an electric guitar right out of Hotel2Tango in Montreal. Or theres Hollis, which punctuates Grimes refrains with more kalimba, subtle bass, and a shuffling, jazzy backbeat before descending into a field of mathy beeps that could be summoned from piano and, maybe, a Fender Rhodes.
The whole record is breathtaking gossamer definite year-end-list material." [Justin Vellucci/Popdose]
Rachel Grimes is best known for her chamber music project Rachels, a hugely influential group formed in 1991 in Louisville, Kentucky, releasing six studio albums between 1995 and 2005. She has also released a string of contemporary classical works in recent years on labels such as Temporary Residence. astrd is a collective of four musicians based in Nantes, releasing records on Rune Grammofon and Home Normal.
After years of mail and email back and forth over the ocean, from Nantes to Kentucky, astrd invited Rachel to come for a residency to make music together and play shows in France. They gathered for a few days, here and there, in 2012 and 2013 to write songs in Cyril and Vanina's home studio in the countryside.
The compositions found on Through the Sparkle glow with a unique, connected energy and a pure, instinctive musical understanding. Considered contributions from all sides allow the pieces to unfurl naturally. Each note and phrase feels like it simply couldnt be placed anywhere else in the album.
Charming, gentle and cinematic sounds are found here in abundance. Melodies circle and reveal themselves without force, allowing the listener to focus and explore the depths of what is on offer. Musically, Through the Sparkle is an expansive and evocative album. There is a presence to be felt throughout, from Cyril Secqs emotive tremelod guitars of M5 to the darker, more haunting mood of The Theme, to the tension in Mossgrove & Seaweed. Strings and woodwind coalesce around intricate piano and guitar movements creating a wealth of harmony and melancholy.
Through the Sparkle is a record of miniature symphonies, of elegant restraint. A gracious and generous offering from a group of musicians at one with each other and at the top of their game."
www.gizehrecords.com
https://gizehrecords.bandcamp.com/album/through-the-sparkle
"Man, thats devastating! If the reverb-drenched guitar on this records second track doesnt move you to tremble with tears, then the soaring strings on M1 surely will.
Pianist/composer Rachel Grimes follows up her best-of-2015 The Clearing solo outing with the magnificent Through The Sparkle, a seven-song collaboration with the French chamber ensemble Astrd, out today digitally, on CD and on vinyl through U.K.-based Gizeh Records. This things gotta be heard to be believed.
Striking, again, with some of her finest work, Grimes piano flashes more contemporary flourishes than the heart-wrenching Romanticism of her landmark years with Rachels, everyones favorite post-classical ensemble. While there are still gentle, lulling notes Im looking to the album-closing Le Petit Salon and, again, the epic M1 Grimes metronomic figures on The Herald en Masse and Mossgrove & Seaweed positively pulsate with life, lending a record laced with restraint loads of emotional force.
This says nothing of Astrd multi-instrumentalist Vanina Andreani, whose violin wraps its fingers around Grimes ephemeral melodies in much the way Christian Fredericksons viola did in Rachels. Guillaume Wickel is brilliant on bass clarinet, drummer/percussionist Yvan Ros does a fine job anchoring the melancholy, and didnt I already mention the eerie repercussions of Cyril Secqs guitar? This ensemble, featuring Grimes, seems to have a beautiful way of making even the most composed moment seem instinctive, lending a gentle humanity to the proceedings.
There are less classical and more post-classical moments on the record, too, like the haunted The Theme, which starts with an emotive bass clarinet figure and kalimba, and expands, more often through the space between notes than the notes themselves, with an electric guitar right out of Hotel2Tango in Montreal. Or theres Hollis, which punctuates Grimes refrains with more kalimba, subtle bass, and a shuffling, jazzy backbeat before descending into a field of mathy beeps that could be summoned from piano and, maybe, a Fender Rhodes.
The whole record is breathtaking gossamer definite year-end-list material." [Justin Vellucci/Popdose]