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Matthew Bourne — Harpsichords
(Discus Music 175CD, 2024, CD / DL)

by Peter Thelen, Published 2024-08-20

Harpsichords Cover art

The story of Harpsichords begins with three damaged harpsichords in various states of disrepair that were offered to Matthew Bourne by Leeds Conservatoire, on the condition that he would make some music using them. Bourne is known for his willingness and ability to make music out of broken and otherwise useless musical instruments, so it was game on. We have encountered Bourne previously in his collaboration with British jazz trio Shiver on their two volumes of Shiver Meets Matthew Bourne, but this is very different, more in his own element, defying any convenient genre categorizations, and certainly not jazz or anything even close. The first disc of this two-CD set is subtitled All Three, At Once, and features three players, each on one damaged harpsichord; Bourne, Glen Leach, and Nika Ticciati improvise on the eight pieces, and right out of the gate things get pretty crazy and chaotic, at first sounding nothing like one would expect a harpsichord to sound, like little gremlins running around inside them, and while the players continue without any real cadence, it’s not like they aren’t hearing one another — in fact they are very attuned to each other’s playing, and the result is truly fascinating. By the end of the first track it seems we are up against a wall of pure cacophony, but somehow its derangement is quite beautiful. It doesn’t stop there; seven more tracks are equally insane and chaotic, but each piece starts differently and gets to its conclusion in a different way, on its own terms. Some listeners might be horrified by it, sending them running for a bottle of headache medicine, though for myself, I find it all very intriguing, and it makes me want  to continue listening. By contrast, the second disc, subtitled Each One, Separately seems a lot more tame, and in fact was created using an entirely different process: Bourne plays an improvisation on one of the harpsichords, while Mark Slater (one half of the Nightports duo), would do live electronic processing in real time. The recordings made by the duo were later subjected to cuts and edits by Adam Martin, the other half of Nightports, who also adds additional electronics and processing. In general, the result is far more gentle on the ears and listenable, though perhaps more interesting and curious as well. It’s amazing what can be done with a broken musical instrument or three!

Filed under: New releases, 2024 releases

Related artist(s): Matthew Bourne

More info
http://discusmusic.bandcamp.com/album/harpsichords-175cd-2024

 

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