Archlute playing is a discrete art, in that this 17th century instrument has few contemporary masters and the widest contemporary acclaim it invokes is in the revivalist cover band efforts of Sting in making an album of John Dowland’s compositions. Christian Vasseur offers a different impulse to that heritage, revival, interpretation or version. Alam is an album of contemporary compositions which invoke both an ear for structure and improvisation in that the compositions do not hold to a form that invokes a sense of the time in which the instrument was first played. In fact they are closer to this specific moment in time, in form and aesthetic inclination.
Invoking the sense of what constitutes “living” music is a fraught strategy and perhaps a laughable joke of a question. However it is a question present for those mastering the art of seemingly archaic instruments in a contemporary setting. This specific recording is from 1993, remastered for Humming Conch in 2009 and coincides with the release of Poèmes saturniens, an album of contemporary work on classical guitar. Questions of time and relevance are questions of brief and young concerns; what constitutes sonic distinction at specific moments? Christian Vasseur provides eleven breath-filled tracks resonating a world that is as alive and as able to travel through time as equally as the instrument itself.
Innerversitysound
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