[…] “Prozession is just as impressive on disc as it was in the concert hall, and it makes for a powerful and illuminating complement to the live experience. … What we hear is a music simultaneously moving forward while continually restarting, recalibrating, reconfiguring itself. There’s a palpable struggle playing out, between disorientation and determination, articulated in a language caught between keening and joy. … Prozession isn’t so much marshalled as gently and sympathetically prodded by a quartet of percussionists, whose role sometimes seems to be merely getting and keeping things going. Yet their omnipresence seems essential in galvanising the ensemble and encouraging them to inch their way toward, first, a voice, and eventually, a song. The process is fascinating and moving, nebulous traces of pitch becoming crude smears in the air, while motes of a motive (in every sense of the word) help formulate the beginnings of something tangible. … i can’t fail to mention the astonishing forms of lyricism that emerge along the way, sometimes squally and uncontrolled, other times delicately wavering, or, in one of its most memorable passages, passing through a dark, low register realm producing a frankly astonishing array of deep velvet-black timbres and colourations. It’s an oscillating hymn of rising and falling, soaring and crashing, but never stopping, even as its melody becomes diffused into chord agglomerations, and it ends up, not in a conventional place of triumph, but somewhere infinitely more enigmatic, suggesting a pained kind of peace.” [reviewed in December] […]
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Strangely I also left this unplayed until this week – though I’d confidently put in my end of year favourites list months ago. What a piece!
[…] “Prozession is just as impressive on disc as it was in the concert hall, and it makes for a powerful and illuminating complement to the live experience. … What we hear is a music simultaneously moving forward while continually restarting, recalibrating, reconfiguring itself. There’s a palpable struggle playing out, between disorientation and determination, articulated in a language caught between keening and joy. … Prozession isn’t so much marshalled as gently and sympathetically prodded by a quartet of percussionists, whose role sometimes seems to be merely getting and keeping things going. Yet their omnipresence seems essential in galvanising the ensemble and encouraging them to inch their way toward, first, a voice, and eventually, a song. The process is fascinating and moving, nebulous traces of pitch becoming crude smears in the air, while motes of a motive (in every sense of the word) help formulate the beginnings of something tangible. … i can’t fail to mention the astonishing forms of lyricism that emerge along the way, sometimes squally and uncontrolled, other times delicately wavering, or, in one of its most memorable passages, passing through a dark, low register realm producing a frankly astonishing array of deep velvet-black timbres and colourations. It’s an oscillating hymn of rising and falling, soaring and crashing, but never stopping, even as its melody becomes diffused into chord agglomerations, and it ends up, not in a conventional place of triumph, but somewhere infinitely more enigmatic, suggesting a pained kind of peace.” [reviewed in December] […]