ARTIST...: Dominique LawalrΘe
TITLE....: First Meeting (Expanded Edition)
YEAR.....: 2022
LABEL....: Catch Wave Ltd. / Ergot Records
CAT.NO...: CW001-RE / ERG-004
GENRE....: Ambient
TIME.....: 67:26
SIZE.....: 154.53 MB
QUALITY..: 320kbps/48.0kHz/Joint Stereo
ENCODER..: LAME
SOURCE...: WEB
RLS.DATE.: 2023/06/03
WEBSITE..: https://boomkat.com/products/first-meeting-expanded-edition
TRACKLIST
01) (04:43) Post-Scriptum
02) (05:08) Musique Satieerique
03) (14:25) Le Secret Blanc
04) (01:36) Flight 3.0.5.
05) (09:32) La Maison Des 5 ╔lΘments
06) (02:34) Minimum II
07) (03:47) Waiting for the Bus
08) (03:59) Listen to the Quiet Voice
09) (02:10) Please Do Not Distrub
10) (06:35) Et Caetera
11) (01:37) K7 Music
12) (06:16) Rainy Sunday : Dimanche Pluvieux
13) (02:04) Milk Shake
14) (02:32) Pleine Lune : Insomnie
15) (00:28) Well !
Dominique LawalrΘe (b. 1954) is a composer born and based in Brussels. First Meeting
is LawalrΘe's first archival release to date. Culled from four different albums
originally self-published on his private label Editions Walrus, circa 1978-1982, this
compilation highlights the composer's unique sense of ambient and minimal
composition. Originally considered for release on Brian Eno's Obscure Records,
LawalrΘe's music is now no longer hidden.
In this collection the listener finds the sounds of piano, synthesizers, percussion,
Wurlitzer, organ, and voice, all performed by LawalrΘe. Using these tools Dominique
creates miniature themes that gallop across the speakers in slow motion, stretching
our normal sense of dynamics and color, effortlessly widening the stereo plane. On
ôMusique Satieerique,ö Dominique pays homage to the influence of Satie with simple
repeated piano figures and a lush field of organs and flutes. And on other
selections, like ôLa Maison Des 5 Elements,ö he takes a more wistful, ambient
approach, layering keyboard lines, and invoking found/tape sounds to create a
hypnogogic world of his own. Childlike in its playfulness and surreal to the bone,
the music spins like a carrousel placed inside the Rothko Chapel. LawalrΘeÆs sense of
timbre, tone, and overarching composition is like an impression of a home movie whose
charm lies in its knowledge of intimacy, shared by few. An incantation of innocence.
"a quiet, understated music that is both touching and elegant"
-Gavin Bryars
"what is most affecting is the feeling of parabolic calm that can emerge from this
music, ascending gradually. It's atypically devoid of New-age clichΘ, closer somehow
to a secular revelation than to any protracted or consensus bliss."
-Keith Connolly, BOMB Magazine
"Part of the charm of LawalrΘe's work, and perhaps why he never broke through into
broader consciousness, was the obliquely personal nature of his albums, which
sometimes felt like improvised sound diaries, or like incremental explorations of
deeply indivualistic themesà A beautiful rediscovery."
-Jon Dale, Uncut
"Harold Budd is an obvious reference point, but LawalrΘe's brilliantly economical
music eschews the grand, systematising ambitions of most minimalist music, and has a
tactility and sense of particular time and place that places it closer to Angelo
Badalamenti, Popol Vuh's Hosianna Mantra, or even Broadcast. This may be the first
meeting, but hopefully not the last."
-Derek Walmsley, The Wire
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