Jules Reidy has conjured a dazzling world of sound on Instants & Their Echoes, enfolding their otherworldly guitar fantasias within the just intoned brass of Zinc & Copper. Carrying on a practice they vividly introduced on the astonishing 2022 album World in World, Reidy has found a unique take on alternate tuning, sculpting sounds that churn & swirl, activated by harmony that seems to levitate even as it moves. When commissioned by Zinc & Copper - the veteran trio of tubist Robin Hayward, French horn player Elena Kakaliagou, & trumpeter/trombonist Hilary Jeffery, who’ve worked with the likes of Catherine Lamb, Ellen Arkbro, & Éliane Radigue - Reidy conceived a fascinating timbre that complemented the group’s sonic purity with their own electronic machinations.
Reidy has described the work as sound “collapsing in on itself,” &, indeed, the music evokes a kind of slow-motion implosion, as parts of a brassy edifice tumble into its foundation - captured instants & time stretched echoes. Reidy ingeniously seized the tail ends of various phrases played by the trio, electronically warping & extending those tones into an ethereal mist colliding with & harmonising against electric guitar figures voiced with the same set of pitches, albeit shifted down to meld into the range of the low brass figures.
The music transforms the sere articulation of the brass with those electronic manipulations, retaining its clarity while reshaping it like putty in a fluid wash that brings a stunning continuity. The chiming guitar tones both twinkle like stars & cast a milky haze, recasting sets of vibrating chords into a genuine sonic journey marked by sorrowful melodic shards & sudden sonic explosions that indicate Reidy’s gifts as a composer. As a listener who’s become spellbound by music composed in just intonation, Reidy has developed something genuinely original that erases the divide between acoustic & electronic, refusing to let a particular tuning system get in the way of an increasingly sure-handed compositional voice.
Peter Margasak
Berlin, June 2023
