The music of William Ryan Fritch is eclectic to say the least, characterised by mournful cinematic cello and plucky organic strings. It feels like the highly textural field recordings of half an orchestra. A low-key concert hall world music. Aside from a few moans or indistinguishable vocals it’s wordless music that leans heavily on western classical musical instrumentation as its source and as a result sounds like nothing else around. He does possess the odd eclectic instrumentation such as a balafon (West African xylophone) or harp, though in the main we’re in the midst of cello, violin, keys and percussion.
It’s Fritch’s second album, though he is probably better known for his role in Anticon stalwart Sole’s Skyrider band. This however is much more refined, a modern classical work with traces of all manner of influences. It’s not as thick or menacing as its predecessor Blood Memory, though it does display that album’s precocious instrumental ability. Fritch plays pretty much all of the instruments himself and the music verges from still, emotive sparse cinematic strings to these highly textural almost Tom Waits style percussive stomps, though where Waits can get abrasive, Fritch is plucking his strings and scraping his varnished wooden instrumentation to generate his rhythms. In this sense it’s quite textural, you can almost feel the sound. Though it’s also immediate, perhaps even poppy. His ability to meld the classical palette with the rawer material, or create these fourth world musical constructions that sound like nothing else is unsurpassed, whether the results are percussive and musical, or more experimentally sonic, everything feels seamless. It’s only later during reflection that you realise how bizarre and unexpected the connections are. The real story is this man’s precocious musical ability on a variety of instrumentation and the sheer artistry of his compositions. His music is almost stately, there’s a real class to the way he approaches sound. It’s a rare album of lasting beauty, where long after the music has finished you can still feel its presence in the room.
Early copies of the album come with a gentle reflective remix album featuring the likes of Aaron Martin, Upward Arrows (Part Timer), Tokyo Bloodworm, Kronos Quartet and Benoit Pioulard amongst others.
Whilst you can download b-sides from the album for free from here
Bob Baker Fish
