Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Myrmyr - The Amber Sea



Digitalis, 2009

Myrmyr is the collaboration of electronic violinist Marielle Jakobsons (also known as darwinsbitch) and multi-instrumentalist Agnes Szelag. What's here is music much more "formal" than one would normally expect from Digitalis. Not a problem in the least, because this is professional level composition and performance on the level of something like Fovea Hex. Academic in upbringing (Jakobsons has a masters in Electronic Music and Recording Media) Myrmyr makes folk music which betrays the usual expectations of cold formality and ivory-tower opaqueness such would bring. Another late-2009 release that kicks the ass of the year's already stellar releases. The sense of dynamics and emotion here is positively sublime. As beautiful and textured as Richard Skelton, as cinematic and enrapturing as Ben Frost or the aforementioned Fovea Hex. Parts of it also distinctly remind me of the instrumentation of Vespertine-era Björk. The forms here are many and well-executed, drones, Max/MSP digital sound breeders, string orchestrales, madrigals, folksongs set deep in the subconscious. "The Sea Returns" feels like the creatures of the sea bemoaning their apocalypse, but re-creating themselves æthereal as the air, luminescent and transluscent sea-slugs, beings of pure unbridled life, calligraphically circling the air in nestled theatres of swamps. An eternity lasting in the alchemical libraries of the Pleroma. Enlightened technologies making the ephemera of evolution's dance last forever. Beauties and mysteries untold!

DOWNLOAD

"Jurata," Live at Soundwaves 2008 series, Music Community Center, SF

myrmyr "Jurata" - Soundwave Series, 2008, SF from Agnes Szelag on Vimeo.



this is freshest of the fresh, so if you can, support the artists if you can (they really especially deserve it) over at digitalis recordings.

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