The magic that Marking Time creates is difficult to describe. It’s something that can really only be experienced. It’s one of those albums that is much more than the sum of its parts, where the piano, bowed strings and guitar create this unique musical alchemy that you could never have expected. Firstly there’s a certain stillness to the music. There are no grooves, pieces don’t necessarily build, rather they just seem to evolve gradually almost imperceptibly through a loose form of repetition. Perhaps they even devolve, it’s difficult to tell, the parts are established early, yet it’s so loose that it feels almost improvised. The drawing drone of the violin, a few tinkery notes of the piano and a gentle guitar feedback drone all enmesh into cycles until you forget there are individual ingredients in this evocative ambient classical work. The other element that’s immediately apparent, like much that has appeared on Sydney based label Preservation in recent times are the textures. This is music that was recorded in a room, and you can hear the room in the piano and also the strings. In fact the strings in particular sound extraordinary, incredibly vivid, tactile even. There’s a certain looseness to the music, it may have possibly been improvised. And though he utilises loops there are these initially hidden elements to the music, certain imperfections, overtones, or different intonations in the playing which only add to the humanness, the sincerity, the soul of the pieces. This is remarkably evocative and powerful music unlike anything else you will hear.
-Bob Baker Fish
