00 - Scorching Bay.nfo
General Information
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Album: Scorching Bay
Artist: John Metcalfe
Copyright: 2004
Genre: Classical
File Information
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Number of Tracks: 12
Total Duration: 0:56:14
Ripped By: NMR
Files Created on: 08-Oct-2014 08:33:39
NFO Created: 08-Oct-2014 08:47:08
Posting
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Reposting Rules: Send any notes/comments to the .new-age group or I won't see it.
Track List
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File Size MB Duration File Name
01 17.10 0:02:47 01 Bend In The Road
02 21.04 0:04:15 02 8
03 20.96 0:04:22 03 7 Days Later
04 36.97 0:05:29 04 First Upset Of The Tournament
05 25.76 0:05:54 05 Scorching Bay
06 34.81 0:05:11 06 Fabrine
07 12.19 0:02:44 07 Curve Of The Sand
08 31.27 0:05:58 08 Rocket
09 26.83 0:06:25 09 Cuba Street
10 37.31 0:05:52 10 Scooter
11 23.53 0:03:57 11 I Don't Remember You Wearing A Watch
12 33.62 0:07:42 12 Music For Trains
Description
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Reviews for Scorching Bay
John L. Walters - The Guardian Friday Review -
"John Metcalfe's strings and electronics are impeccable."
John
Metcalfe's Scorching Bay (Black Box, 13.99) is an example of what you might call the "logical tendency" - music constructed thoughtfully and carefully from considerations of sound and music, with little to dilute it. He is best known as a performer, playing viola in the Duke Quartet and on sessions, but this album - very much a labour of love despite its high production values - is the expression of Metcalfe's
compositional personality, which splashes happily across several streams of
current music-making. All of this is entirely appropriate for someone who
trained at the RNCM in Manchester while playing in the Durutti Column and kick-
starting the influential Factory Classical Label.
Like
Metcalfe's earlier CD, The Inner Line (packaged as a free extra with the new album), Scorching Bay is on a classical label that asks us to "file under electronica". Much of the music seems to have been developed from synthesizer sequences and expert knob-twiddling, but there's
also prominently featured guitar, viola, violin and keyboards from Metcalfe
himself, plus real drums, bass and cello.
There's no hint of lo-fi messiness: Scorching Bay is clean and credible, a well constructed album of through-composed variations that lead logically to a satisfying conclusion. But it's
Metcalfe's skill with strings that give the work an emotional punch.
You could compare it to The Orchestra, or Graham Fitkin's
recent Kaplan, but Metcalfe goes much further in integrating transparent
electronics with more visceral and rhythmic performance elements. Despite some
soppy moments, the best bits of Scorching Bay are as "pure" as a piano study or
a solo improvisation: the way the multi-tracked strings mesh with Ralph
Salmins's busy beats on First Major Upset of the Tournament; the trance-like tension sustained on Scooter.
The relaxed title track hints both at Steve Reich's
Electric Counterpoint and the way that minimalist classic was appropriated by
the Orb. You could compare some of
Metcalfe's work to those oddball library albums that DJs plunder from time to time, but Scorching Bay is not kitsch. And it isn't
tied down by any "school" or subculture or trend, which seems entirely
logical.'
Classical Music Web - "... mesmerising rhythmic sounds ... a sense of developing drama, skilfully contrived with exciting contrast between percussion and strings ... chamber forces are imaginatively used by the composer and the music is played with great conviction."
John Sunier, Audiophile Audition: "A remarkable achievement in new music that neatly dances over all the categories of jazz, classical, minimalist, whathaveyou. there are no notes about composer / performer Metcalfe. since scorching bay is identified as being in New Zealand, one gathers that is his home base.
The notes only indicate that he regards the dozen tracks as basically one composition, and he limited the amount of thematic material used in each track. The opening track has many new themes, and in the following tracks these themes are modified in various ways but must preserve the exact pitches and rhythms of the original with variation. By the final track there is only material left which has been used several times over.
I was unable to identify exact themes but there is a similar quality of tonal, perhaps modal melodies here, often spun out over a highly motoric rhythmic base. Metcalfe has obviously been layering in many tracks of his various instruments; in the track first major upset... for instance, there is a rich string orchestra backing which with the guitar or piano solo over it reminded me of my favorite modern jazz album - Stan Getz'
focus.
The guitar is sometimes electrified but with a subtlety that works out well
with the other stringed instruments in the ensemble. curve of the sand has a
lovely cello voice over new age-sounding highly reverbed piano ostinato. While
there is considerable repetition - as with much modern music - Metcalfe seems
to be able to maintain interest with slightly unexpected turns that offer relief
from a philip glassy stuck-groove sort of sound.
The self-imposed limitations seem to call forth superb creativity from Metcalfe
- as similar various constrictions have sparked composers to greater achievement
for hundreds of years. The overall mood struck me as a sort of sunnier, warmer
version of what has come to be known as the ECM sound.
I
couldn't recommend this album more, and if you want more after hearing it, you need look no further than the free bonus disc included. It features the same cellist and drummer, no bassist but two other violinists - and Metcalfe does not play piano on this one, which appears to be an earlier version of what he is doing on Scorching Bay.
In fact, speaking of restrictions calling forth new creativity, one of the tracks is titled Schoenberg (he would have said that is one of the advantages of working with an unchanging tone row in serial composition, for example) but don't
misunderstand - this is not Swiss cheese music, but lovely, flowing, tonal
chamber music. One of the bonus tracks involves some repeated vocal
declamations, another has a wordless vocalise, and this outing was a bit more
minimalist.
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