|
(Clicka qua per la versione Italiana)
British producer and dj James Holden, whose
Horizons (2000) went viral when he was still a teenager,
debuted with
The Idiots are Winning (Border Community, 2006), an album that seemed
to explore the pastoral and ecstatic side of
Boards Of Canada while displaying a
strong musical persona.
The virtuoso percussionist performance of Lump is coupled
with an increasingly anthemic melody, albeit one drenched in stormy
distortions.
The thinly syncopated beat of 10101 is swept by ominous galactic dirt
before it straightens into a vintage techno locomotive.
Something similar happens on standout Idiot, that boasts the same kind of syncopation and ends with the same kind of massive apocalyptic pounding while the keyboard intones an android hymn.
A robust driving beat emerges also from the
rocket-like space jam Corduroy, whereas
Flute is a horror-industrial vignette.
The last four pieces are pure filler (one piece is even
Intentionally Left Blank), but the first six show enough
creativity to obliterate most of the competition.
The sprawling The Inheritors (Border Community, 2013) opens with
Rannoch Dawn, an overture that fuses
hard rock, folk jig and minimalist repetition.
Repetition becomes the leitmotiv in the pieces that follow:
the shamanic tribal dance A Circle Inside A Circle Inside,
the vintage electronic bubbling The Illuminations,
the suspenseful noir crescendo of Inter-City 125,
the more turbulent and anguished The Inheritors,
and especially
the New Order-ish dancefloor novelty Renata.
After a while, however, the repetition does feel a bit... repetitive.
The method works wonders in the psychedelic freak-out plus free-jazz mayhem of
The Caterpillar's Intervention (which ends way too soon);
in the agonizing tide of Sky Burial driven by a requiem-like accordion/organ;
and
in the nocturnal swinging Seven Stars, that morphs into a
psychedelic and neoclassical vertigo and ends with an orgy of dissonances.
A bomber-plane drone introduces the eight-minute shuffle
Blackpool Late Eighties, but the overly melodic theme that follows goes
nowhere.
The album marks a step backwards in imagination and creativity.
A collaboration with Moroccan gnawa master Mahmoud Guinia yielded the
EP Marhaba (2015), which opened a whole new career for Holden.
James Holden recruited a live band for The Animal Spirits (2017),
an album born at the confluence of minimalist repetition, free jazz and
African rhythms.
Spinning Dance recalls some hypnotic propulsive prog-rock of the 1970s,
somewhere between Jethro Tull and
Amon Duul II.
Pass Through The Fire weaves together
Terry Riley-ian organ minimalism,
frantically syncopated drumming and free-jazz saxophone phrases to concoct
a chaotic bacchanal.
The seven-minute Thunder Moon Gathering restarts from that bacchanal
and for a while lets it linger halfway between a
tropical party and the romantic angst of Robert Wyatt's Rock Bottom.
Unfortunately most of the compositions don't amount to much.
The slow, languid, stately The Beginning And End Of The World sounds
like a Pink Floyd-ian shuffle.
There's a facile pop ballad hiding inside The Neverending.
The feverish synth and sax duet The Animal Spirits doesn't quite coalesce.
Polyrhythms and dense textures are not enough to create enough pathos.
Holden also scored the soundtrack for Chris Kelly's documentary
A Cambodian Spring (2019).
|
