Thanya Iyer - Tide/tied - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Guillaume de Chassy - Vue Du Phare [COMPACT DISCS] date 05/25/2004

Crucial questions around healing, cultural identity, and disability are among the many subjects visited by Thanya Iyer's sophomore album, KIND. Although represented by a concise title, KIND explores an expansive universe where Iyer and her band examine interpersonal relationships, ideas of home and destination, and our collective responsibilities to one another. To aid in this journey of big, difficult questions, Iyer enlists the help of a huge cast of musicians, with guest features ranging from brass trios, vocal sextets, flautists, and harpists. Underscoring it's explorative nature, the constant movement of KIND melds the sounds of experimental pop and improv into a magical amalgam that teems with flashes of jazz and nuanced electronics. Iyer's rhythm section pulsates with genre-defying palettes of blips and skitters that twist elegantly into the melodic voices of interlocking synth, strings, and piano, allled by Iyer's enrapturing lilt. The rhythmic direction of bassist Alexander Kasirer-Smibert and percussionist Daniel Gélinas clears a navigable path in an otherwise unnavigable setting, built on the pair's understated yet intriguing expertise. The most succinct distillation of the album's themes is perhaps found in KIND's tracklist. Please Don't Hold Me Hostage for Who I Am, Who I Was and Bring Back That Which is Kind to You inspire philosophies of self-care and emergent reconfigurations of justice, calling on listeners to self-reflect and detach from our preconceptions of ourselves and our identity. At the end of it's course, KIND arrives at the conclusion of acceptance and resolve acceptance of our collective circumstance, and the resolve to make the choice to do better

The music of Brahms, regardless of tastes, trends or aesthetic currents, is already part of the whisper of history. It does not need defenders, it does not concern detractors. It just stays. This recording that is presented here breathes nobility. Nobility in the message of Brahms's work and nobility in an interpretation that also starts from an absolute devotion to the music of two performers in a moment of full artistic maturity. There are no hesitations here either, the ideas are clearly and emphatically exposed, everything emerges and develops as if there were no other possibility of interpretation. Pure music that demands a total surrender and that parts from the deep knowledge of the Brahmsian language that the interpreters display at all times.