Grower
Last year brought us ‘Drape’ from the collaborative minds of British clarinet virtuoso Gareth Davis and Dutch experimentalist Rutger Zuydervelt. ‘Grower’ is based on material culled from the same sessions, but manages to hold up as a very different beast to its predecessor. What sets these two musicians apart from their contemporaries is a patience and subtlety often missing in drone music. That might seem like a funny thing to say about material which would most often be called out as dull by a passer by, but too much of it is plagued by unnecessary production smarts and incessant hyperactivity. Not so here, where Davis and Zuydervelt drag us through two expertly measured long-form pieces which allow the time we need to sink in to the music and experience it from the inside, out. Davis’s clarinet is the centrepoint of the record, with its breathy tones providing the perfect foil for Zuydervelt’s syrupy tones and treatments. While the two musicians might not be dropping anything particularly new onto the table, they have managed to fashion a record free of missteps, and one that you can lose yourself in from beginning to end.
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Last year brought us ‘Drape’ from the collaborative minds of British clarinet virtuoso Gareth Davis and Dutch experimentalist Rutger Zuydervelt. ‘Grower’ is based on material culled from the same sessions, but manages to hold up as a very different beast to its predecessor. What sets these two musicians apart from their contemporaries is a patience and subtlety often missing in drone music. That might seem like a funny thing to say about material which would most often be called out as dull by a passer by, but too much of it is plagued by unnecessary production smarts and incessant hyperactivity. Not so here, where Davis and Zuydervelt drag us through two expertly measured long-form pieces which allow the time we need to sink in to the music and experience it from the inside, out. Davis’s clarinet is the centrepoint of the record, with its breathy tones providing the perfect foil for Zuydervelt’s syrupy tones and treatments. While the two musicians might not be dropping anything particularly new onto the table, they have managed to fashion a record free of missteps, and one that you can lose yourself in from beginning to end.
Last year brought us ‘Drape’ from the collaborative minds of British clarinet virtuoso Gareth Davis and Dutch experimentalist Rutger Zuydervelt. ‘Grower’ is based on material culled from the same sessions, but manages to hold up as a very different beast to its predecessor. What sets these two musicians apart from their contemporaries is a patience and subtlety often missing in drone music. That might seem like a funny thing to say about material which would most often be called out as dull by a passer by, but too much of it is plagued by unnecessary production smarts and incessant hyperactivity. Not so here, where Davis and Zuydervelt drag us through two expertly measured long-form pieces which allow the time we need to sink in to the music and experience it from the inside, out. Davis’s clarinet is the centrepoint of the record, with its breathy tones providing the perfect foil for Zuydervelt’s syrupy tones and treatments. While the two musicians might not be dropping anything particularly new onto the table, they have managed to fashion a record free of missteps, and one that you can lose yourself in from beginning to end.