Pieter Nooten seems to have spent most of his music career turning his back on the gothic luminescence that he helped conjure up on the first few Clan Of Xymox albums. His 1987 collaboration with Michael Brook saw him draw unexpected tranquillity and minimalist subtlety from his Xymox songs, paving the way for a lot of the gentle modern piano artists that followed in his footsteps.
Musically, things went a little quite after that until his return in the 2000s and the start of a clearly satisfying relationship with Rocket Girl Records. This album is his first since 2013’s Haven, which in itself was the third in a trilogy of albums produced entirely using a Macbook. With the odd human intervention, it seemed that Pieter wanted to explore the emotional possibilities of one man working alone digitally and to be honest, on the whole those albums are a success. The feelings produced on themare genuine and it is hard to tell that real instruments were not used. However, for Stem, Pieter has gone back to a group dynamic, using a string trio to augment a lot of the songs and requesting assistance from friends on guitar and piano as well as collaborating on the production side with renowned engineer Stephen W Tayler.
It is like some enormous farewell at the train station. That slow-motion feeling of somebody or something you love moving away from you. Not necessarily forever, but for a time that gives you a pang. A kind of uplifting melancholy that is pure and honest. The slow build violin and drone of opener “Fieldz” is lulling and gentle; that feeling of being adrift amidst a sea of crops swaying in a summer breeze is brought alive by the onset of bells, and a swell of hypnotic sounds that are drifting and mysterious. The piano hints at a storm to come, which finally erupts towards the end of the track leaving us soaked but alive. Pianist Ian Ring assists on “Quarter Moon” and you can’t help feeling that the sense of collaboration contained in this album brings out the best in Pieter. There just seems to be a little more emotion here, the resonant notes of the piano are struck with a force that is probably hard to replicate on a computer, and as the sustain dies away, there is a palpable air of loss for each of those dying notes. The majority of tracks here are piano led and the incredibly hypnotic, cyclical effect on “Theme Minimaliste I & II” are hair-raising in their delicate repetition, but the strings lend so much weight to the track and embody that whole feeling of the station farewell. They ooze melancholy at times, and on the uplifting “Theme II”, the addition of a rhythmic drum track lends a gorgeous sense of motion which builds and builds to quite a clamour at the end. I can’t help feeling that Pieter is enjoying himself here and must have really enjoyed looking into the eyes of the players, particularly the string trio as they embellished the subtle basics of the songs. And perhaps with Tayler taking care of the production side there is an element of freedom to just enjoy playing and interacting. It certainly feels like it.“Variation In F#minor” has the cello playing of Lucas Stam, who last worked with Pieter on Oaktree‘s album Dust. Here, his cello lends a more sombre and thoughtful tone to the track and allows the piano to take the lead, forcefully picking out a direction and filling the air with vibrant strength. I sometimes feel a bit sorry for Pieter, because every time he releases an album, the comparisons hark back to Sleeps With The Fishes, suggesting that was his most cohesive and important work. For all Sleeps‘ joys, it was a plangent, shimmering affair like ripples on a pale pool; but on Stem, thirty years later, there is so much more a sense of vibrancy.
Sleeps With The Fishes was a stepping stone to allow a way through for this album. Stem deals in the same gentle moods, but they are enhanced, rendered clearer. The closer “I Felt”, with its staccato piano notes and propulsive rhythm, houses a sense of distant travel and a search for some new home, a sense of striving for some distant shore, waving off travellers intent on exploration. Maybe this album is Nooten’s final destination which has taken three decades to reach. If it is, he can be proud of the achievement and the sense of togetherness it brings.-Mr Olivetti-
