What is it about the notes of a solitary piano that appeal to me so much, I wonder? This 2 minute 10 second piece passed my cardinal test for new music – which is that it made me pause in my work and give it my undivided attention. I expected the piano pattern\u00a0to\u00a0lead into some sort of aural explosion at the end, because this is how music of this sort conditions you; and it’s great at building tension, this track. The bass notes buzzes into existence around the 1:19 mark, but that is about all the variance you get.<\/p>\n
The album, though, is more adventurous. A blend of cello-scrapes and breathy\u00a0flute notes make up the\u00a0bulk of the initial track ‘Divided’; it feels like a conductor raising his hands and waking an\u00a0orchestra\u00a0from a dream of centuries, a single note that is sustained over 4 minutes and 23 seconds. ‘Close Forever Watching’ is a sister track to ‘Divided’, going through a similar cycle of build-up of drone sounds that scream and whisper and sigh one after the other. Similarly, ‘Fiction Dawn’ is a sister track to ‘Time Spent’, a\u00a0lone\u00a0piano wandering through tense passages of full of promise. ‘The Day I would Never Have’ is a 10 minute track that marks\u00a0the mid-point of the album, and combines the tinkle of the piano and the hum of the\u00a0pads. Beautiful.<\/p>\n