Review: 0 - Soñando

Each of these seven pieces hangs like a wind chime, tethered above low frequencies as delicate formations of metallic resonance, swaying and clanging as acoustic melody is threaded gently through the bars. Sound arrives as finger-plucked cascades and softly spoken interplays between the glockenspiels and chimes that cradle the inner harmonies; notes glide into eachother and linger upon patient, baited-breath pauses, with each move somehow both painstakingly deliberate and extremely natural. There’s a sense that everything could shatter if an instrument was overplucked or struck without due care – a sort of pristine, modelmaker’s precision that brings the haunt of tension to an otherwise blissful unfolding.

The modest intricacy of the melodies often brings to mind James Blackshaw – who also shares the record’s sense of solemn, pastoral mystery – while the conversational criss-cross of harmonies are akin to many of the works commissioned for the Minneapolis Guitar Quartet, with each player managing to remain responsive to the others while daydreaming into his/her personal tangent. The collaborative communication is quiet and understated – the players subtly weave themselves into one entity, with limbs and strings overlapping into a single cocoon of deep, solitary introspection.