Pianist Christian Wallumrød‘s solo investigations seem to inhabit the space between silence and sound, and drift between the familiar and the untrodden.
Although a prolific collaborator, this is his first solo outing since 2021’s Speaksome and this format perhaps gives us the closest peek to his personal vision. Alone on piano, synth, harmonium, autoharp and drum machine, the album veers between three different recording sessions and switches from pensive echo-laden minimalism to deliberately mis-stepped but more elaborate pieces that show a unique approach to keyed instruments.
Notes appear from silence on opener “Marrowing” and drift back from whence they came, the discordant pointillism dreamily revelling in playful finger placement. You never know what might come next and even if the slow decay points in one direction, the chosen note may push you in another.
These odd choices make sense to Christian and because of his sincerity and belief, repeated listening draws you into this unexpected realm. It feels at first like somebody starting out; but the more the pieces progress, so you realise the deliberate mis-steps are there to make you rethink your understanding of what works. A series of repetitive experiments infects “Ny gitar”, but then a motif is touched upon that carries you back to something familiar, a footing upon which we can rest briefly before the rug is pulled out again. The steps back find him falling in love with a run of pretty melodic phrases that give an open yearning. As the album progresses, so you feel he is searching for a way to enfold the slower, spacier pieces as antidotes to those with more structure.“You Didn’t” features effected autoharp giving a dreamy ethereal sound, its distant echo a brief reminder of some long-forgotten Twin Peaks episode; while the irregular heartbeat and rolling bassy, bluesy jazz of “Higher Than Your Gluteus” finds us firmly in New Orleans, but the city is deserted and hesitant.
The inscrutable titles, the odd evocation of something familiar and the pairing of instruments set against acres of space give an opportunity to rethink our relationship with piano music. There is warmth set against eerie harshness on “Resting Blueberry”, while the odd misstep on “Deer Naylla” is even more obvious when set against a moody rumbling melancholy, its little hiccups of synth drifting across the more strident piano causing a staggered effect that is pleasing and disconcerting in equal measure.The album ends with “The Sing”, which feels as though Christian is revisiting earlier pieces and trying to further impress those sensations as if the earlier visits were not quite enough. He tries to open up new paths or new ways of listening right up to the very end and it is a clever conclusion, because you are then anxious to replay the earlier pieces.
As an addition to his œuvre, Percolation is lovely; but it also makes you reconsider what works and what doesn’t in the context of piano music.-Mr Olivetti-
