John Tilbury/Keith Rowe/Kjell Bjorgeengen: Sissel

Rating: ★★★★

Record and Artist Details

Musicians:

John Tilbury (p)
Keith Rowe (tabletop g)
Kjell Bjørgeengen (video)

Label:

Sofa 563

June/2018

RecordDate:

January 2017

Over a span of 50 minutes, John Tilbury, Keith Rowe and Kjell Bjørgeengen remember Bjørgeengen's wife Sissel, who died in 2016: “We created this music with Sissel in our hearts and minds,” a dedication on the album sleeve reads. The three men had collaborated before, on the 2015 Sofa release enough still not to know, which saw Tilbury and Rowe create music for Bjørgeengen's latest video installation. This time round, though, their aim was to unify video and sound at a deeper level. To that end, Bjørgeengen was involved in the compositional pre-planning while, in the moment of performance, circuitry called a ‘Flood Coil’ allows Rowe to incorporate and then work on sounds emitted from the video. The purpose of this music never loses itself inside this concentration on technology; someone special has died and these tender, delicate sounds speak of desolation and vulnerability. Tilbury's softer-thansoft piano touch occasionally outlines tumbling triads that melt back into the sparse electronic soundscape. The last 10 minutes are extraordinary: whispering, barely audible sounds feel liberated from structural anchors and haunt the space, like we're witnessing the afterlife of everything previously heard.

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