Vieo Abiungo exist at a strange netherworld where modern classical, tribal, the experimental and film music intersect. It’s a kind of fourth world music, too complex and playful to be film music, yet too experimental, distorted and distended to be classical. It possesses a unique undercurrent or energy that seems to stem from the percussion which initially seems to be working counter to the sweeping melodies however like barnacles it then begins to sweep up other instrumentation which attach themselves to its wake. It can be a light footed and cheeky, sprawl out into a bawdy beautiful drunken mess of sound, whilst at other times feel tight, light and contained. This is really something quite different and spacial.
It’s the debut from William Ryan Fritch, a multi instrumentalist and film composer who’s probably best known for his role in Anticon’s Sole & The Skyrider Band. It’s bold and beautiful with a slight darkness that sits uneasily with the sheer precociousness of the man. It feels like anything can happen. His mixes are thick. Sounds reveal themselves triumphantly only to submerge again, horns, cello, turntable, synths, even subtle fragments of voice (or voices). Fritch clearly likes building order from disorder, a kind of messy hard won beauty from amongst the swirls and seemingly amorphous, near ambient wanderings. But the key is really the percussion, there’s everything from kit to what sounds like banging on soft drink cans and it offers an anchor to the music that not only prevents it from drifting away, but actually sends it a completely disparate direction. The press release suggests that Fritch is a self taught player of over thirty instruments. You’d have to think that most have them have made their way onto Blood Memory, yet rather than weigh the music down, this density has offered a new and interesting method of composition as like a sculptor he carves out his unique and complex path through the debris.
It’s on the new Lost Tribe Sound label, check their site for more details.
Bob Baker Fish
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