ARTiST: Library Tapes
ALBUM: Sketches
BiTRATE: 140kbps avg
QUALiTY: EAC Secure Mode / LAME 3.97 Final / -V2 --vbr-new / 44.100Khz
LABEL: Make Mine Music
GENRE: Ambient
SiZE: 26.71 megs
PLAYTiME: 0h 25min 11sec total
RiP DATE: 2008-08-20
STORE DATE: 2008-00-00
Track List:
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01. Sketch 1 Snowleaf 2:07
02. Sketch 2 First Day Of Spring 1:42
03. Sketch 3 View From A Train 1 1:54
04. Sketch 4 The Park 2:37
05. Sketch 5 View From A Train 2 2:14
06. Sketch 6 Fields 1:58
07. Sketch 7 Waves 1:49
08. Sketch 8 The Typewriter 3:12
09. Sketch 9 View From A Train 3 2:46
10. Sketch 10 May 1:59
11. Sketch 11 First Day Of Winter 2:53
Release Notes:
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Originally conceived as a tour EP, Library Tapes' Sketches finds David Wenngren
hooking up with cellist Danny Norbury, whose releases have previously graced
labels as diverse as Static Caravan and Ono. After the ambiguous, droning intro
'Snowleaf', the two musicians gel together brilliantly on 'The First Day Of
Spring', which over the course of ninety seconds finds Norbury's bow strokes
swelling in an ambient pattern, while Wenngren's elegiac piano crumbles
elegantly into the backdrop. From here on, it shows quite some skill that these
two are able to find so many different ways of configuring an otherwise
controlled palette. But for some subtle electronic modulation and occasional
field recordings woven into the backdrop, the content is restricted to that
combination of piano and cello, but thanks to the clever production and
presentation, there's always an implication that there's more going on here than
meets the ear. 'View From A Train 2' is composed from what is essentially the
alternation between two very similar chords being keyed softly and slowly over
two minutes, yet within these small gestures you'll hear a tangibly emotive
power. This effect is only amplified further when Norbuy takes the lead, as on
'Fields', whose incredibly restrained, understated melodies never have to shout
about how beautiful and instantly cinematic they are. Taking in eleven different
sketches over twenty-five minutes, this release just flies by, but it also feels
like it's covered an awful lot of ground by the time you arrive at the closing
track 'First Day Of Winter', and this is most certainly one of those occasions
when the phrase 'more than the sum of its parts' is applicable: Wenngren and
Norbury have made something quietly expansive and deftly constructed from what
essentially amounts to just two instruments. Lovely.