A Closer Listen
An exciting release that slides from modern composition to post-rock, As Breath starts with a weighty theme, but can’t hide its exuberance. The morphing tones are the result of a collaboration between Mikael Tobias and friends Crush String Collective (Maria Martine Jagd, Pauline Hogstrand and Oda Dyrnes). To our memory, it’s also the only work we’ve reviewed this year in which castanets receive billing.
As with many recent albums, the composition began mid-pandemic and ended when pandemic became endemic. As such, the album delves into multiple emotions and lands on acceptance. Tobias writes of “impermanence, transience and the cyclical nature of life,” musings into which the world has been plunged over the past few years; Tobias’ difference is that he translates it into music. As such, the opening “Treaty” is string-laden, somber and drone-like, with a single car honk (warning to those listening while driving!). The presence of only one honk is a reminder of the sparse times in which fewer commuters were on the road. In “Early Reflections,” the electronic components come to the fore, but the mood is still pensive, as befits the title. A mid-track whoosh comes across as the winds of change, presaging a heavier segment of bass and beat.
The string work on “To Dwell Among Them” is especially lovely, a pause to remember the victims. After this, the compositional ground continues to shift, a reminder of a time in which every aspect of life seemed in flux. “Forgotten Rituals” begins as an elegy and plunges into a dirge. A chasm of guitars elevates the turmoil, the drama and despair. How did the album come this far, this fast? The same question was asked of society in 2020. The monstrous concluding chords are the high point of the album, representing the low point of emotion.
Tobias writes of a “return to normal” (quotes included), recognizing that there is no return; nor is there a “new normal,” despite the popularity of the phrase. The change is rather one of surrender to life’s vicissitudes. Life comes at us in waves, but in between the waves are the troughs, and thus it has always been, and always shall it be. Only when the illusion of stability is shattered can the true stability emerge. Tobias does not tame the turbulence, but finds calm in the midst of chaos. Though the drones reemerge at the end, the composer himself is changed. (Richard Allen)
Fri Nov 24 00:01:03 GMT 2023