Intervals arrogates to itself the threads that formed many of Asher Thal-Nir’s past efforts – simple piano motifs, physically and dramatically measured stretches of ambience, sinewy, gimlet-eyed tones, and an array of field recordings of indistinct nature. Where before they stood isolated in a wholly singular fashion, on this particular work they unfold together as in a corolla. In like manner, the sketches offered up, of which there are thirty-nine, each lasting long enough to emit but a few frail, if telling, breaths, are generally full-bodied, with liberal use of the instruments on hand, whereas past recordings have dealt strongly in absence, under the belief that force comes from subtraction, and not accumulation.
Through its constant bath of sound, color, light, and movement comes Asher’s most accessible release yet. The portentous influence of time and space bear heavily on the pieces. Space is primordial for Asher; the former being fashioned in and through the nuances of space. At the same time, though, the recordings generally fail on this front; selections go without establishing spatial nuances of a significant sort, and the insights proffered by the disc on the matter at hand are rudimentary and lacking in depth.
Pieces based on field recordings from indoor environments hang heavy like humidity. Sullen, well-spaced piano notes sound like tiny lights illuminating the environment before giving into the night, further cementing the aura as one of isolation and torpor. Those characterized by field recordings of nature and the outdoors are, as one would expect, a good deal more open and charged with movement. This is depicted in fermata’s of breezy entanglement and textures of casual asperity, which carry time onward while simultaneously making it vanish like smoke. There’s a genuine vibrancy to these works, to all of them, in fact. In tracing the recurring trajectory of the incidental and everyday, Intervals is a wholehearted success, and a pleasurable one at that.
Max Schaefer
