Reviews
Artist:Routes Quartet Album: Arche
Label: Self Released
Tracks: 6
Website: https://routesstrings.bandcamp.com/
Recorded at the end of Winter in a secluded studio at Tynron, in Dumfries and Galloway, this is improvised and composed music that's very much of the world rather than apart from it. Captured sounds that evoke a strong sense of time and place were manipulated by co-producer David Donaldson and woven back into the music's timbre, grounding everything. Indeed the final moments of ambience that close the album end with engineer chat, revealing the ghost in the machine. ARCHE, pronounced 'ar-ki' means beginning, origin or the first priciple. Echoed by the graphic on the cover that evokes ice on glass or some kind of navigational rune, there is a raw, natural almost primeval sense to the music.
"Vesta" the first set of the album has a cinematic opening. Slow string chords sound alongside atmospherics and what sounds like the pops and cracks of a fire. Resonant visceral and at times percussive Violins, Viola and Cello lead us through the set with playing that nods to traditional dance and more atmospheric classical. Emma Tomlinson Viola player with the quartet says the Routes love it when listeners construct their own narratives and the music is certainly rich enough to have many stories laid upon on. Both the very pastoral and elemental opener and the strongly rhythmic "Miltos" set with its powerful jazzy double bass like cello beat conjure pictures. The second set, all pulsing beat and folk fiddle is very much a physical treat for the feet as well as warm mood music. Like the Penguin Café Orchestra, ARCHE is thoughtful music with a strong pulse. "Thymos" is another gloriously expansive landscapepiece, slow sweeping bowed strings create notes that travel to equally to your ears through the air and through the floor to your body. The opening section rumbles like Sigur Ros for strings. The second section features more fragile violin and viola from David Lombardi, Madeleine Stewart and Emma, Tomlinson. Underpinned by the elastic pulse of Rufus Huggan's cello. Within one track the Quarter draw on mystical international music, classical music and the ride power of Scots traditional music. "Kairos" opens as a stately ordered classical dance, steady and controlled, cerebral after the brooding power of "Thymos". There is real beauty in the way the players precisely swirl around each other in a slow graceful dance, slowly raising the intensity.
A sound interlude precedes the brooding start to the aptly named "Andrew Waits Unneccesary Noises" a piece I would love to see live to work out how the quartet makes half of the sounds. The sleeve notes mention a Paul Jennings film that documents the album and it's process, which must be a fascinating addition to this enthralling album.
The final section sees a return to the hypnotic weaving grand classical dance music. "Melos" runs for an incredible nine minutes and is paced accordingly with a slowly building drone like intro that builds into another intricate circling dance. There is light and shade as the music builds and then falls away alternating between an almost Philip Glass pulse and bouncing folk fiddle lines. This is music that manages to intoxicate and stimulate within one track, with an ending that is just glorious. "Astar" has a rich folk melody over some equally resonant cello and a strong tune you cannot help but be physically engaged by. The second Madeleine Stewart composed section builds to an almost hallucinatory peak as sounds collide around you. Equally satisfying as both an immersive head phone or big speakers experience and as ambient mood music, this is music that is difficult to classify but easy to enjoy. Very much like ECM Stephan Micus or edge of jazz trumpeter Nils Petter Molvaer, this is emotional, visceral music that is impervious to labels as it flows between writer's East classifications.
Marc Higgins
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