Simon Vincent: Autumn Revelations Vision Of Sound Records VOSCD-004
On three previous occasions we ran reviews of Simon Vincent’s work (Vital Weekly 1037, 1064 and 1080) they were all written by Dolf Mulder and I expected this fourth one to be up his alley also. But what prompted me to listen to it myself first was the fact that the main composition here,
the title piece, was written after “meeting Stockhausen at his composition courses in 1999”.
Vincent’s previous releases seemed to be dabbling in some way or another with jazz, but not this one. The main portion here is the title piece, but it opens up with a five minute piano piece from 2016, or sparse tranquillity with a few notes, played in groups. It is dedicated to the Canadian
guitarist Ken Aldcroft and his family.
‘Autumn Revelations’ (and I am not sure if the revelations lie in Stockhausen’s courses, or perhaps somewhere else) was composed for multiple speaker set-up but here of course reduced to stereo. In this piece drone like sounds play a central role and it is built from a single wave form
that gets expanded on; maybe doubling or tripling the waves, or perhaps various different closely connected wave forms cobbling together. The only other instrument seems to be a single bell or chime being struck with very long intervals. It opens the piece and only is heard again after some
ten minutes. In the middle of this thirty-five minute piece there is a segment in which it all seems to be a bit quicker, but from here on the spaces get bigger and bigger again. It is also in this second when the drones seems to have been chopped with a very fine knife and become rather more synth
like bubbles, but at any time it remains to have this tranquil character. Towards the end it returns to where we started and that is with waveforms slowly untangling and becoming a single shape again.
It is a very quiet piece, one that requires to be played at a lower volume, I should think. I am not sure if the piano piece as opening was really necessary. I can imagine that jazzo’s might find it a radical release and a piano piece of silent proportions may help some appreciation for the whole thing, but for me just the title piece would have already been perfect. (FdW)
Vital Weekly