Luminous

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Sitting here, late at night, listening to the recording and trying to think of what to write about it, I am struck at how, well …. clear, energetic, spontaneous and fresh the album seems. I am surprised…..!

Even though all the works are, technically speaking, ‘composed’, I always included sections for both individual and group improvisations, which, in retrospect I can now see really changed the way we approached our performance. In the state of heightened group consciousness that seems to occur in any real chamber music playing, we were taken that degree further when suddenly we found ourselves in the open space of the free sections; -a subtle lean here, a rhythmic move there, a sniff or obliquely sub-liminal smile, as we moved past our (always very) individual different personalities and found ourselves…speaking, being as one voice….. and then there were the transitions back to the written material, which seem so natural, seamless now, hard for even me to spot …

But who knows, maybe I am just biased, and experiencing the inevitable narcissistic self-reflection/recognition of the “creator through his works” syndrome, (often quite tragic when it grows unchecked over the years!) or maybe it is just simply the passage of years, as with certain memories, of experiences and stages of one’s life that has given it that golden glow.

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Review:

“…from meditative ambience, through deeply beautiful passages, to abrasive improvisations which have an almost heavy metal edge…consistently imaginative and a very impressive debut.”

Rolling Stone, 1999 Leslie Sly

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