Issues of hierarchy typically come to the fore when composers and classical ensembles signify themselves on an album cowl. Who’s the boss? Who has the title with probably the most advertising clout? That’s not the case on Interius/Exterius. The composer, Catherine Lamb, and the performers, Ghost Ensemble, have as a substitute expressed this file’s collaborative high quality.
In 2022 Lamb, an American violist who lives in Germany, got here to the U.S. to workshop concepts with New York-based chamber group Ghost Ensemble. Each composer and band shared pursuits in microtonal music and the deep-listening observe of Pauline Oliveros, however as they labored collectively, Ghost Ensemble discovered extra about Lamb’s very explicit tuning ideas and he or she gained data that knowledgeable the completed piece. Ghost Ensemble carried out the six-part Interius/Exterius in 2022 and recorded it two years later, and also you suppose that the time spent on attending to understand it has one thing to do with how effectively the 9 musicians steadiness relaxed pacing with particular execution of the tonal relationships that maintain the music collectively.
Ghost Ensemble’s instrumentation—4 low strings, two excessive winds, accordion, harp and hammered dulcimer—is effectively outfitted to understand the overlapping lengthy tones that give the music a way of steady improvement. The group doesn’t solidify right into a trance-inducing drone, however navigates a purposeful course that lightly piques the listener’s curiosity about the place the following step might fall. At some factors, the cadence of the bowing evokes respiratory, however brilliant, generously spaced harp and hammered-dulcimer notes places you extra within the thoughts of a constellation of stars.
These ongoing, contrasting spatial results correspond to Lamb’s intent to make sounds that relate to one another in an in/out trend. They situate the listener smack in the midst of this trade, concurrently encircling and flowing previous at a tempo that’s unhurried, however by no means lulling.
Interius/Exterius is a non-intoxicating however absorbing countermeasure for no matter assails you, and who doesn’t really feel bombarded by one thing in 2025? [Grayfade]
—Invoice Meyer
