Until the Point of Hushed Support (Review)

Prior to pressing the play button I tried to paint myself an aural picture of the sort of landscapes I might encounter based on the track titles:

- ‘Industry vs Inferiority’, ‘Marc’s Descent’, ‘In the Event of a Sudden Loss’ and ‘Until the Point of Least Resistance’ I was pretty sure the path would be a sombre one, what enfolded over the forty-eight minutes duration was much more emotionally complex!

Industry vs Inferiority (Extract)

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It begins with a quiet, almost eerie introduction… ‘Industry vs Inferiority’ features a piano almost ‘prepared’ or electronically treated sounding, that slowly unfolds the composition like a flower head exposing it’s complex beauty in slo-mo. This piece, although short, was beautiful yet fragile.

Marc’s Descent (Extract)

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The next track ‘Marc’s Descent’ immediately forces you into a completely different place altogether. It’s shrill strings, percussion, disembodied voices and magnificent organ tones lead you as if in a funeral procession into a much darker world. Bleak in nature yet sonically brilliant this piece sets the tone for the majority of the album.

In the Event of a Sudden Loss (Extract)

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‘In the Event of a Sudden Loss’ is a natural progression from the remnants of the previous piece. As if just awake from some dream or nightmare, the electronic sound sculptures slowly evolve… distant radio transmissions combine with haunting organ tones that swirl banshee like around in the head. You are motionless, almost unable to move until the fog horn like woodwinds announce themselves from the mist. The string section and haunting bell-gong sounds mournfully build, hitting climactic peaks, dropping you into nothingness, again re-establishing themselves before stuttering into a black electronic void.

Until the Point of Least Resistance (Extract)

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Thus the final track ‘Until the Point of Least Resistance’ slowly evolves harmonically with a combination of electronics, bell like structures and voices. There is a sense of a quiet sublime joyfulness to begin with, a welcome relief from the previous track. Gradually and majestically, strings and a deep organ pedal ostinato come to the fore and combine in a fantastically grande way to an emotional climax before dissipating gradually into the final section which echoes the very beginning of the track. After such a sonic rollercoster a simple repeated piano motif gently develops before eventually and quietly passing into… silence.

This recording is a wonderfully breathtaking ambitious ensemble piece and definitely an album well worth investing your emotions in. Review by Felixdroid for Fluid Radio

About The Album:

Until the Point of Hushed Support is the second full-length offering from Greg Haines, born in England and now based in Berlin. Though it has been over three years since the release of his debut, Slumber Tides (Miasmah, 2006), the last few years have seen Haines traveling around the world and refining his craft, performing as a solo artist, improvising with other musicians, creating music for contemporary dance, and finally arriving at this new album, a beautifully contemplative forty-eight minute piece for string quintet, church organ, piano, percussion, and
electronics.

For the most part, this album was recorded in the Grunewald Church in Berlin with the assistance of friend and fellow musician, Nils Frahm. Together, Haines and Frahm assembled a team of musicians to bring the score alive. More processed sounds (mostly assembled at Haines’ Berlin studio, The Electricity Works) were even played back into the church and re- recorded, to truly add to the acoustic nature of the album. Whereas Slumber Tides played out as a gorgeous exploration of sound and composition by a curious musician with fresh ears, Until the Point of Hushed Support comes across as a bold statement from a unique modern composer. Throughout the four sections of the piece, we are taken seamlessly through an incredibly powerful dynamic range. With an assortment of sounds
collected and processed over the last two years combined with the live instrumentation, Haines creates his own orchestra; a unique sonic world where the sound of a dying radio is just as important as a mournful violin.

Track List:

I. Industry vs. Inferiority
II. Marc’s Descent
III. In the Event of a Sudden Loss
IV. Until the Point of Least Resistance

Release Date: 26 march 2010 on Sonic Pieces Label

www.greghaines.co.uk
www.myspace.com/greghainesmusic
www.sonicpieces.com