A Colour For Autumn is hard to describe, in that firstly it suggests that it pertains to a representational act, describing a season. Or at the very least provides a musical colour tonality for the season. Landscapes in a visual sense are a seeming easier act, in the sense of the ability to convey. Yet music has the quality of temporal movement and spatial dimensions unavailable to visual representation which may suggest the possibility of a closer impression. When questioned directly Lawrence English suggested that the seasonal experience was a highly localized experience and that the idea of the album was more to open up people’ imaginations towards their experience of autumn, rather than to attempt to claim an objective representation. He further quipped “that Vivaldi had that one tied up†in reference to the idea of seasons of life as a descriptive notion.
So when opening track Droplet descends, deep analog chords, vocal intonations of New Zealander Dean Roberts and interwoven field recordings, the sense that a music as paean to nature is invoked. English steps back, in Watch it Unfold, to a more ponderous spun out chord and tonal harmonics, interwoven, with a studied ease and control. Austrian musician Christian Fennesz adds electronics on The Surface of Everything, playing off and with the minimal guitar exchanges. Stillness in motion sums up the sense of this album, in that it is a controlled studied in form, whose discreteness and skill in mixing demonstrates English’ precision and purpose. In that field recordings add a seasonal directness and demonstrates a passion for the field, akin to his fellow Brisbane musician Eugene Carhesio, it adds nuance to the impression gathered here that English has accomplished a sonic mastery that is discrete and rare. If one stands humbled in the face of a force majeure, to even attempt an impression, yet even as skilled and rare a delight as A Colour for Autumn, is a feat for the best of us.
Innerversitysound
