Twinkle³ – Minor Planets: album review and video premier

Marionette

I listened to this this morning and the rabbits came. Bear with me. I was listening on headphones, which seems the most appropriate way to access this and the rabbits started to emerge from the hedgerows as I walked through the field to work. They couldn’t hear, unless they were the psychic rabbits we’ve heard so much about in these parts, but they understood their role in playing with this gently immersive music.

They hopped and skipped, as rabbits do and their actions seemed almost laughably in sync with the music in this, the third album from this electroacoustic trio, featuring Richard Scott, David Ross and Clive Bell. It’s Bell’s work with the (I assume) shakuhachi (Japanese flute) that strikes you first, lulling you into a soft yet angular drift, which is then complemented by oddly-wired electronics.

This is, in essence, music that slips into the “ambient” category and yet, if such a thing is possible, it is oxymoronic in the sense that most of the tunes here are characterised by a kind of twitchy calm, as if the modular synthesisers are increasingly coming to life and demanding more and yet are gently restrained by the players, who seem in total control. At times, I was even reminded of some of the classic UK improv groups such as Spontaneous Music Ensemble, and while Minor Planets doesn’t I think attempt to follow those strange leads, it feels very much part of that world.

There’s a flow to the album, but it doesn’t go anywhere and, in this case, I mean this is a compliment, since it seems that the trio are synergistically aligned, even in its most obviously improvisational moments. They are good listeners and this shows; never once does the soundfield seem crowded ,even if there is always a lot going on. Breath is key and you can almost hear the group holding theirs, even if you imagine they must be tempted to squeeze more of their own sound into the mix. The mastery here is in the restraint, the prevention, the ceding of individual interest to collective goals. They know where they are going.

Superficially, this could be music played in the Totnes or Glastonbury shops, selling herbs or potions or Egyptian artefacts, and yet it transcends this kind of music in that there’s a restlessness and energy to the tracks that keep you listening, rather than encouraging mental drift. Some of the tunes are as abstracted as, say Autechre, and require a while to sink in before they send you on their way, and none of them outstay their welcome; the trio let them evolve into their being and then pull the plugs.

If it might seem like New Age music (albeit the best kind) at times then this is perhaps slightly misleading because, whatever the cosmic intentions – there is space in all senses in here – this is new age only via the complex circuitry of Karlheinz Stockhausen or Bernard Parmegiani. Parmegiani’s gently twinkling spikes seems more relevant here, even if this music is less obviously dissonant. You need to give it a little time to let you ears adjust, and you may even need to wander into the fields to let the rabbits hear, but it is rewarding and softly transcendent stuff, with three people clearly in thrall to each other’s musical abilities.

-Loki-