Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Skuli Sverrisson, "Seria," Beyond Category. . .


Blame Skuli Sverrisson if his music does not fit neatly into any category. Which blog should I post this review on? I posted my review of Seria II on my gapplegateguitar.blogspot.com site. It fitted there, I reasoned to myself, because there are guitars in the ensemble, and in some ways it is a world music. His music could equally be defined as no-new-age classicism, or post-ECM jazz composition. It's new music. That's as specific as one needs to get, I guess.

Seria (Seria Music) is quite obviously the first album in the series. It uses a mid-sized ensemble of stringed instruments, winds and such, and also a female vocalist, to present a music that has a certain connection to Indo-Pak classicism, the music of Oregon, and any number of elements, including some relationship to tonal classicism. But all that is only like saying that pizza uses flour, cheese, tomato sauce, etc., to get to where it is. The "getting to" is what counts. In the same way Seria goes beyond its individual components to lay something on us that sounds different.

There is some very interesting music happening here. Beyond that at this point I would suggest you listen to it and hear for yourself what it is about. It is lyrical, mellow, but in a spaced out kind of way. A good use of your time, I would think.

No comments:

Post a Comment