Lori Goldston

Convolutions

Genre: MODERN CLASSICAL / AMBIENT

Limited Edition CD

Boomkat Product Review:

A leading cellist of her generation since performing on Nirvana’s ‘MTV Unplugged in New York’ in 1994, Lori Goldston’s stylistic mutability hits in a way that obviously recalls Arthur's World of Echo, then magnificently sprawls, It's another precious selection from guess-again specialists Nyahh Records.

Active in classical, “world” music and free improv since the early ‘80s, Lori Goldston was Nirvana’s cellist of choice for their 1993 tour and fabled MTV slot, leading her to work with everyone from Dylan Carlson’s Earth to Black Cat Orchestra, and establish herself as an eminent solo cellist in the process. ‘Convolutions’ marks a decade since her solo debut ‘Film Scores’ suite for Sub Rosa - over which time she’s collaborated with Aidan Baker, Judith Hamann, Marissa Anderson, to name just a few - with a intimate, illuminating showreel of spontaneous performances recorded in Cork, Limerick, Leitrim and Drogheda.

As the label states, “every performance is drastically different to one another in mood, energy and technique”, and as such we see her adapting performances to the setting of each space with an exposition of her instrument’s legendary versatility of voice - said to resemble the closest to human vocal range. In her rugged tone and feel for treading the space between consonance/dissonance, Goldston grips the senses to a fierce see-saw in ’Several Ballads All at Once’ with a quality recalling Laura Cannell’s channelling of arcane energy, whilst the 14 minute ‘Cascadian Sheer’ is weft with a more lilting quality that harks to Irish and Scottish folk via Appalachian styles, and even classical phrasing.

In stark contrast ‘Gradually, In Silhouette’ settles down into a sort of enchanted modal free jazz subtly informed by folk melody, then suddenly bursting into flames, while the 20 minute closer ‘The Rays of the Sun’ perhaps best betrays her background playing with some of doom rock’s greatest in coruscating riffs of potency that uncannily call to mind passages of Arthur Russell’s World of Echo.

TIP!

Limited Edition CD (4)