Ears aware of the quiet precision of sound in a blatantly loud world may have passed their eyes across the reviews in Textura. Akin to Cyclic Defrost, discrete sonic adventurers abound in this Canadian music online magazine.
Textura’s first CD release is, in a sense, a contemplation on Coleridge’s Kubla Khan (or A Vision in a Dream. A Fragment) – a poetic vision on history, all too resounding in modern times where the promises of ‘the pleasure dome’ lull to sleep its entrants. The representatives here are no slouches, The Retail Sectors (Kentaro Togawa) bookend the compilation with a build to drone and distort intensity and warmth. Alexander Turnquist’s ‘Fragments Vaulted Like Rebounding Hail’ is an epic textural melding of his skill with 12-string guitar, toy xylophone, fused with samplers electronic manipulation. Ryan Francesconi’s three tracks standout somehow their direct crisp guitarplay convey more; simple bright, deceptively naïve, minimal guitarscapes reveal a depth of knowledge. His ‘Green to Red’ with Lili De La Mora vocals holds a delightful whimsy in the center of the compilation. Mike Fazio under the guise of orchestramaxfieldparrish presents a pedal steel guitar shimmer of light akin to ambient cathedral works of overly sacred organists.
It takes skill and active imagination to stay awake in Kubla Khan’s dream. The players are aware of it being a dream and the entrants asleep, aware of their complicity in the dream state, and their close examination of technique, awareness and mind activity allows the listener to enter and exit this beautific dream palace. With clarity of mind Textura’s debut awakens the mind to the beauty beyond the soporific poetry of Coleridge.
Innerversitysound
