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Reviews

Jeff Greinke — Other Weather
(Spotted Peccary SPM-3702, 2021, CD / DL)

by Peter Thelen, Published 2021-03-14

Other Weather Cover art

For as long as I can remember, Jeff Greinke’s music has been conceptually associated with climate, weather, and other meteorological phenomenon, with titles like Cities in Fog, Big Weather, Moving Climates, Before the Storm, Changing Skies, Before Sunrise, and the like, released on a number of different labels over the years (Ear-Rational, Intrepid, Projekt, Dossier, Silent, Linden, Hypnos, First World, Lotuspike, and most recently its parent label Spotted Peccary Music), but what hasn’t changed is Greinke’s musical perspective and explorative ambience as he wanders through his creations of textural soundworlds and shimmering melodic atmospherics. With somewhere around 30 releases since his 1982 debut, Other Weather stands as his latest, and the first since 2018’s Before Sunrise, offering a gentle blending of dreamy electronic melodies and textures, sometimes blended with acoustic instrumentation into an elegant impressionist vision that needs no standard musical constructs to define it. The eleven pieces here are entirely Greinke’s compositions and arrangements, using pianos, layers of synths and software instruments, and the studio itself to create an insular world defined only by his concepts, to expressively convey his musical vision. And that vision is like no other, there really are no comparisons within easy reach. “Clouds Like Flying Saucers” makes an experiential melodic statement as it wanders effortlessly, without any groove or sense of repetition, driven only by feeling. With “Rain through the Night” a semblance of repitition flows through a gentle atmosphere of sparkling piano melodies.One might get the feeling that much of the music presented here is improvised, and I suspect that would be correct, though it’s hard to know how much of it is scored, while the arrangements seem to be openly fluid and ever-changing. A couple of the album’s cuts, “Icebreaker” and the nine minute “Snow across a Windswept Plain” feature guest musicians playing various woodwinds, strings, and French horn, adding an additional dimension to Greinke’s arrangements of piano, synths, etc. and taking those pieces into more of a modern classical style. With Other Weather, Greinke has created a beautiful and incandescent path through his visions, imagery, and dreams.

Filed under: New releases, 2021 releases

Related artist(s): Jeff Greinke

More info
http://ambientelectronic.bandcamp.com/album/other-weather

 

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