aus & Danny Norbury - Better Late Than Never

A Closer Listen

The album begins as quietly as winter snow.  Soft piano notes fall from the sky, immersed in cloud-like ambience.  Then the cello notes start to play, yielding a reflective and slightly mournful tone.   By the end of “A Diary Entry from Years Ago,” the timbre has shifted from ambience to modern composition, graced with an electronic dusting that later remixers will bring to the fore.  The talents of aus & Danny Norbury are so well blended that they operate as one, in the same way as the songs seep into each other, operating as a suite.

The title of that third track, arriving after “Tales We Tell,” is perfectly tailored for the packaging, or the other way around.  The album ~ originally available on Fluid Audio, now on Flau ~ was initially packaged in a repurposed book, different for every customer, accompanied by a glassine slide, ancient photograph, art cards and other ephemera.  It also smells nice.  While memory and nostalgia are common themes in peaceful instrumental recordings, the ability to pore over someone else‘s personal effects lends a voyeuristic, yet personal touch.  These items meant something to somebody, once upon a time.

What lasting legacy do we leave behind?  What of our lives will survive?  Are we as ephemeral as objects?  When “Paper Lanterns,” whose very title suggests saying goodbye, begins with a sound akin to a movie reel, one cannot help but reminisce and take inventory.  On the other hand, the music is new: a reevaluation, a sonic translation.  The album, released in winter, serenades the spring.  The art cards display various flowers in full bloom.  Life is both linear and cyclical.

The seven primary tracks unfold as an uninterrupted reverie, beautifully sequenced, with edges massaged.  The Humble Bee and Tape Loop Orchestra revisit the second and third tracks, viewing them from different angles.  Now the music, mimicking the mind, also plays on a loop.  The past is filtered through different lenses, offering new perspective.  Is this what really happened?  As hard as it was, was there not beauty as well?  “Tales We Tell” is particularly elongated, three times its original length, a memory worth revisiting, replaying, reassessing.  The prominent bass of Tape Loop Orchestra’s take lifts the set to a second finale, a commentary on the original ending, an alternate, more glorious conclusion.

While the album seems to trace the arc of a life, it also traces the way in which one regards a life. Like a good eulogy, the album lets the negative aspects go in order to concentrate on the positive. The tone may touch upon tragedy, but one track (“Tanpopo,” or “Dandelion”) shares the name of a comedy.  Perhaps Better Late Than Never refers to the ability, later in life, to look back and accept what has come before, to glide peacefully into the now, perhaps the forever.  (Richard Allen)