Nagl - Lechner - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Max Nagl - Ensemble Ramasuri [COMPACT DISCS] date 01/09/2007

Hearing Zachary Lucky's songs, or reading or writing about this emerging and indelible Canadian artist's past, it would seem impossible to separate the singer-songwriter from his prairie origins. With the re-issue of his sixth , The Ballad Of Losing You, there is an inherent shift. As the album title suggests, Lucky has constructed an earnest and personal narrative about the uncertainty of loss and of transformation. The style of InchThe Ballad Of Losing YouInch has drifted from his folk beginnings into a country and English ballad tradition. The tape and analogue production quality blend it with a purity and an honesty that parallel the lyrical narrative. It is a break-up record on surface level. But a deeper listen and a glance at the extent of Lucky's road dates suggest that other transitions and departures are at play in his creative evolution. InchThe Ballad Of Losing YouInch was engineered by Chad Mason and features such session players as Aaron Goldstein (City & Colour, Daniel Romano & The Trilliums) and Karrnnel Sawitsky (The Fretless) as well as mixing by Jonathan Anderson (Aidan Knight.) It is a serious and heartfelt listen- one that sacrifices modern perfection for an older sensibility, character and quality of tone and mood.

Danish composer Nicolai Worsaae (b. 1980) himself claims a fundamental identification with the narrative form found in classical music. Nevertheless, he has in recent years moved father away from the lyrical and narrative and turned more sharply towards modernism. On this you meet Worsaae in two works For both 'Wesenheit ab Wesenheit' (2011) and 'WaWV' (2014) Worsaae found inspiration in poems by the German prisoner Jorg Meyer, who during the late 70's was confined to isolation in a Danish prison. Worsaae's father was prison chaplain and in this way met Meyer who was imprisoned for espionage for the GDR in Denmark. In total, Worsaae uses 13 short poems and not such a great many different sounds to create a musical universe able to express what it is like to be in solitary confinement.