Aggressive Ambiance

Snow Catches on her Eyelashes fooled me twice yesterday.  After intently listening to the album by longtime collaborators Eivind Aarset and Jan Bang on headphones, I set it as background music through a speaker as I read.  Rather than recognizing the recording had concluded, I twice assumed the hum of an air conditioner, the drone of a refrigerator and the rumble of traffic were components of the album’s aggressive ambient music.  Dissevered from headphones or a sound-proof room, the pristine sound field created by Aarset, a Terje Rypdal-style guitarist, and Bang, a sampler/producer favored by chamber-jazz luminaries including Tigran Hamasyan, spills into space like water from a leaky cup.  My appreciation of the Norwegians’ project represents an evolution of my affinity for sinister sounds in the quarantine era.  The disquieting Snow Catches on her Eyelashes is less harsh than the industrial noise I favored three months ago.  My favorite track?  It’s the one combining electrical murmurs and birdsong at the end of the album.


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I reviewed Rudresh Mahanthappa’s Hero Trio at Plastic Sax.

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Last night’s showing of the Metropolitan Opera’s 2017 production of Verdi’s “La Traviata” was the 93rd opera I’ve watched in the past 93 days.  John Adams’ “Doctor Atomic” streams tonight.

(Original image of Akko by There Stands the Glass.)