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Dirk Serries & Trösta — Island on the Moon
(Bandcamp Consouling Sounds SOUL0169, 2021, CD / DL)

by Jon Davis, Published 2022-05-19

Island on the Moon Cover art

The credits on this album list the two artists together as utilizing “electric guitar, alto saxophone, effects.” Presumably, Series is primarily on guitar and Trösta (Belgian saxophonist Nicolas Lefèvre) on the sax; both could be contributing the effects, though it would be well within Serries’ MO to be the driving force there. There are four tracks in the 10-12 minute range, and they could all be described in basic terms by the title of the final track, “Tranquillitatis.” The guitar is present only in the form of ambient washes of sound shimmering and floating through time. Not a single recognizable guitar note is heard during the course of the music. The saxophone, on the other hand, is relatively naked, clearly discernible with its wandering melodies. Trösta relies primarily on clean, mellow tones, only very rarely injecting a touch of grit to the sound, and the alto is well-suited to this role. Island on the Moon exists in a region that bridges ambient and jazz — though jazz is probably not the right word. Certainly the use of saxophone implies jazz, but Trösta’s playing here, while it is almost certainly largely improvised, is not idiomatic of jazz. But genre labels are for those who lack imagination and want to constrict rather than expand what music can be, so I’ll just say that this is expansive music for meditative moods.

Filed under: New releases, 2021 releases

Related artist(s): Dirk Serries / Vidna Obmana / Fear Falls Burning

More info
http://dirkserries.bandcamp.com/album/island-on-the-moon

 

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