TranceClassical
J.S. BACH (1685-1750)
Air (arr. M. Beiser for cello & electronics) [5:04]
Michael JORDAN
All Vows [9:22]
Imogen HEAP(b. 1977)
Hide and Seek (arr. M. Beiser for voice, cello & electronics) [5:08]
Glenn KOTCHE (b. 1970)
Three Parts Wisdom [10:40]
Lou REED (1942-2013)
Heroin (arr. David Lang for voice, cello & electronics) [9:34]
Julia WOLFE (b. 1958)
Emunah [8:01]
Mohammed FAROUZ (b. 1985)
Kol Nidrei [7:48]
David T. LITTLE (b. 1978)
Hellhound [6:15]
Hildegard von BINGEN (1098-1179)
O virtus sapientiae (arr. M. Beiser for cello & electronics) [3:46]
Maya Beiser (cello)
Andrew McKenna Lee (electric guitar) and Morean from Dark Fortress (Hellbound).
rec. details not given.
INNOVA 952 [65:42]
Multifaceted cellist Maya Beiser is a founding member of
the Bang on a Can All-Stars and has a sizeable discography with eight solo
albums and many studio recordings and film music collaborations. Her own comments
on this project are useful: “TranceClassical started from a washed-out
still photo in my mind – me, as a little girl curled with a blanket
on her parents’ sofa, hearing Bach for the first time, hanging on to
every mysterious note coming out of the scratchy LP. TranceClassical is the
arc my mind sketches between everything I create and Bach – David Lang
and Bach, Glenn Kotche and Bach, Michael Gordon and Bach. No matter how far
I venture, how rebellious, or avant-garde or electronic, my artistic mooring
stays with the creation of this immense genius.”
This statement is clear from the outset, Beiser’s simple and lovely
arrangement of Bach’s famous Air from the Orchestral Suite
No. 3, BWV 1068 emerging as from that scratchy old LP, the signal from
the grooves dimmed as if from dust on the needle and an antique crackle from
beginning to end. All of these tracks have been treated in some way, either
through an approach to the sound or in arrangement, so Michael Gordon’s
All Vows is played through a halo of reverberation almost at the
same level as the original sound from the cello’s strings. This is elegiac
music but with shape and momentum, the climbing major-key material building
some tension, but in a monadic and Medieval way rather than Romantically,
though this is part of the mix as well. The effect with the sustained and
sparing notes of the voice part further into the piece creates a magical effect.
Hide and Seek sends the singing voice through a Vocoder effect, adding
cello texture and harmonic progressions to the voice in a remarkably effective
way. This has been done before by the likes of Laurie Anderson of course,
but the cello sound gives the sound a melancholy intimacy which goes against
what you might associate more with robotic de-personalisation. High-speed
contrast is delivered in Glenn Kotche’s Three Part Wisdom,
the already restless cello part given added impetus through a chase-your-tail
echo effect. The canonic counterpoint between the multiple ‘cellos’
and a healthy dose of cavernous reverberation widens the stereo image into
a kind of landscape of very attractive sonorities.
Lou Reed’s Heroin, in its version with singer and guitar only,
is perfect for the kind of arrangement it receives here, the cello roaming
over the strings like a Bach prelude but with Reed’s guitar harmonies
still recognisable. The vocal part is made suitably husky through the recording
balance and everything is suitably enigmatic. The notes inside the cover of
this CD are brief and often poetic, the words for Julia Wolfe’s Emunah
or ‘Belief’ being “the friction between a cello and a voice
floating in closely colliding intervals occasionally surrendering to a perfect
unison…” This doesn’t cover everything of course, but think
of a surreal soundscape contained in an industrial chamber in which the player
and voice are always further away than you expect, or strangely disembodied
in their world of restricted tonality.
Kol Nidrei by Mohammed Fairouz, described as “a prayer about
human imperfection”, likewise sets the performance in an unusual acoustic
but builds a passionate interaction in exotic scales. “The words are
personal, the melody is Universal, the words divide, the music unites.”
The sotto-voce quality of the Aramaic vocals here do not prepare
us for the dark march of Hellbound which is an environment of rock-like
distortions, through which the cello sometimes emerges as a softer centre,
but as often rising to the challenge like a lead guitar in a huge stadium,
and certainly equalling the added actual electric guitar of Andrew McKenna
Lee.
The “sense of trance” delivered by Hellbound may not
help your “reverie and meditation,” but calm is restored in the
final O Virtus Sapientgae, in which the cello sings Hildegard von
Bingen’s beautiful lines over a gentle drone.
Maya Beiser continues her category-defying path with TranceClassical,
and I have no doubt this release will delight her fans and feed the flame
of her crusade in redefining the cello’s boundaries beyond the conventional.
If you are open to this rich vein of classical-instrument-meeting-modern-technology
then there is much here in which to revel. I’ve certainly very much
enjoyed becoming immersed in this imaginative and wide-ranging world, and
would certainly recommend this album to any young musician seeking ways to
go as far beyond their Popper Etudes as possible.
Dominy Clements
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