“We had the pleasure to work with Chris Vibberts during the first lockdown on his piece ‘I’ll Rise at Dawn Once More’. Because of restrictions, we were unable to work in the same room as Chris, which would have been our normal process. This really forced us to work as if the piece was our own. Together with sound engineer Fabien Leseure, we focused on bringing as many acoustic sounds as possible into this beautiful soundscape. Margaret Hermant played violin and harp, and Neil Leiter played viola and bass viola. Through extended techniques we recreated many of Chris’s sounds on our own instruments in order to give the piece as much human depth as possible. We could not be more pleased with how our two musical languages worked together.” – Margaret Hermant and Neil Leiter
Opening with a “Requiem,” Chrystal Für’s third album Elusion is an elegy to the cycle of loss, acceptance, and the promise of restored life. Reflective piano interweaves with droning waves of sound and intermittent shards of static that is equal parts nostalgia and hope.
The apex of the album, “I’ll Rise At Dawn Once More”, is produced and performed by Echo Collective (Stars of the Lid, Jóhann Jóhannsson, A Winged Victory for the Sullen, Erasure). It is a stirring string tribute to emerging from turbulence into the elation of a new day. There is an emotional weight and otherworldly quality to the journey the album takes you on—it is at once a validation and salve for hearts that are hurting in our era.
Chrystal Für was born three years ago in the high desert mountains of central Mexico during Christopher J Vibberts’ year and a half sabbatical from film scoring and producing in his California recording studio, The Rabbit Hole Recording. It was a sabbatical that turned into a way of life. Inspired by the act of jumping ship from the rat race, slowing down, and focusing on the intricate, elemental beauty that surrounds us at every moment just waiting to be noticed, he began to create music that reflected this new way of being in the world.
The music on Elusion is colored by Christopher’s history composing for film, studio experiments, and love of ethnic and electronic instruments, combined with his passion for travel and exploration of other cultures. In 2019, after years of admiration for the music coming out of Iceland, he took a trip to the November Iceland Airwaves festival— a journey left left an indelible impression both through the unique talent he observed but also the stark majesty of this island nation. The impact had a profound and lingering effect that can be heard throughout this album.
Christopher’s musical journey has taken him from studying songwriting and performance at Berklee College of Music, to a year writing and recording with 60’s teen idol Gene Pitney in the 90’s, to studying sitar with Ali Akbar Khan disciple Peter van Gelder, to recording and touring with Bauhaus/Love and Rockets bassist and singer David J, playing sitar, lap steel, keyboards, guitar, Melodica, and percussion. On Elusion his decades of composing, performing, producing, and collaborating have been distilled into a molten mixture of mature arrangements, intuitive musical choices, and stirring melodies that earn him a spot among today’s brightest post-classical composers. Eluding the expectations that shaped his early career and life, Christopher continues to follow his own call and expand his sense of home, now living with his family and creating from Porto, Portugal.