Stepping out from the shadows of A Silver Mt Zion must be quite an undertaking, but Jessica Moss has chosen this opportunity to release her third album and see what she can offer under her own steam. The violin is her main instrument and, along with voice and drones, she has constructed some elliptical sound worlds from these basic ingredients that are far greater as a whole than the sum of their parts.
The opener to the album, “Particles” is a suite of sorts that seems to be a constant exploration of space, both inside and out. Starting with otherworldly transmissions that skitter across our bows, they evoke an astral starscape that is existing just beyond our reach, but as some reverbed strokes are introduced, it re-attaches to the here and now. It maintains a fleeting air, however, until the violin joins in, bringing a sense of humanity with its mournful tone. I don’t know if it is the instrument or the player, but there is something about the string players who revolve around the Constellation family that infuses their sound with a heavy feeling of melancholy. In fact, some of the playing is so stentorian that you would imagine it to be a cello and sits there at the base of the mix acting as a kind of warning to the main violin motif.
It gradually recedes until all that is left is a stranded drone that feels very different; lonely somehow and yearning, the implied distance making it less and less engaged. Just when you think it has offered everything, a voice breaks through, changing the tone of the piece again. The resigned tones sound as though they are drifting from long-abandoned rooms in some kind of penitentiary, no longer locked, but these fleeting figures too tired to leave or unwilling to join humanity again for other reasons. These voices link together as if this is their reason for existence, and as we pass along the corridors, so the sounds mingle with distant echoes and the faintest thrum of activity.
These experiments continue across the other three sections; a sprightly folk air looped over and over on part two, and on part three, otherworldly chorals, loosely related to the earlier cell dwellers, link together in differing structures like a patchwork jigsaw puzzle. The final section’s Eastern tone, assisted by what sounds like a balalaika, sees the violin slice through the doomed romanticism and changes the feeling again. We end in a confluence of everything that has passed before as the voices reappear and tie the whole thing together, a spirit of optimism drifting in the air.
-Mr Olivetti-
