|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Review by Bill Binkelman long night is a long-form (maxi-EP) composition by composer (and author, educator, musician, et al.) Kyle Gann, performed by pianist Sarah Cahill. It's complete title is '"long night" for three pianos' and throughout the piece's twenty-five minutes, Cahill can be heard solo, as a duet, or even as three pianos, playing either in harmony or following three different musical threads, as it were. The music itself is quiet, minimal (for the most part) and deeply introspective. While not as sparse as, e.g., the work of Ernesto Diaz-Infante, the emphasis here is not on recognizable refrains or even particularly overt melodies, but more on tone, nuance and notes strewn together to yield evocative snap shots of emotions, usually the more somber ones. Have you ever seen those wooden boxes with glass sides (about the size of a shoe box) that are filled with tiny metal balls suspended by magnets above three tuned bells? When turned upside down, the tiny balls drop in random yet pleasing patterns and strike the bells producing a wonderful sound that is constantly changing yet also maintaining a certain sense of welcoming friendliness, like the sound of raindrops hitting a tin roof. While not as inviting as that (owing to the presence of so many minor notes and chords and a slight amount of "quiet cacophony" when all three pianos are running their disparate courses), it still is an apt visual metaphor. Cahill's talent and technique brings beauty to every piano key played as she gently wrings emotional resonance from both the most minimal passages as well as the multi-tracked trio sections. long night is not particularly sad or dark, yet it's not happy, joyful, or bright either. On the other hand, it is not overly abstract, distant, cold or concerned with itself. I heard a distinct human connectedness between music and performer at almost all times (admittedly, some of the more adventurous passages lean more toward the intellectual than the soulful). Mostly, long night felt like the soundtrack to late urban nights, looking out over the city below as lights wink on and off in buildings across the landscape (this is in marked contrast to the graphics on the EP which depict a decrepit farmhouse on fire on the CD's front and a school of fish underwater on the digipack's back). These images are all that strike me as pretentious about the recording, and when the only thing you can knock about a CD is its cover art, you have obviously found a solid recording, which long night most definitely is. I solidly recommend it to fans who seek a piano album that avoids both the sterility of some more overt ambient works yet rejects the avant garde stylings that alienate lovers of melody and structure. |
|
