Reality is sometimes to be found in the cracks of what we perceive, in the fissures in walls, through holes in fences, through torn curtains, through broken shutters, yet even then there is hardly anything to grasp, to connect or frame. The picture is incomplete, evasive, unknownable but because of this quality, is it creates attention, it attracts, it forces you to look closer, to come closer, to look differently, to actively search for other means of coming to grips with what is already gone, what disappears before your eyes.
It is in this space that the music of David Brown on guitar and Chris Abrahams (The Necks) on piano comes to live. What they bring has a kind of natural feeling of familiarity: you hear guitar and piano, you sense some pulse, some repetition even, but never long enough to comprehend it, to predict it, to anticipate it. This constant and soft-spoken renewal of simple sounds has an effect of fresh surprise.
Yet there is a story somehow, some unity that keeps it all together, some drama even, as in "The Saw Had A Job To Do That Summer" in which some electrical instrument breaks through the sound, after which the music falls like percussive shards into nothingness, and gets built up again, note by note. With the beautiful "Watery For Two Days", the album ends in repetitive yet changing flowing piano phrases, with muted guitar sounds offering cross-currents and other obstructions, sometimes moving along, often going against the grain.
Clever and beautiful music.
© stef
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