Delving into the musical potential of the humbucker pick-up and other electro-mechanical instruments, getting inspired by ghost towns in Ontario, recording a whole album from a pedestrian bridge near to his home and composing for a new instrument, the halldorophone, Nick Storring is the archetypal, restless experimenter. He’s driven by the ‘what if’ and the ‘why not’ but crucially not to the detriment of ‘what for’. Storring writes and performs music with the purpose of drawing the listener closer rather than leaving them out in the cold.
That power to reach out and capture imaginations gets underlined once more on the Canadian artist’s ninth album ‘Mirante’, out now on We Are Busy Bodies. It’s a set of thematically coherent, highly graphic instrumental pieces with Brazil, geographically and culturally, as its inspiration. Reading that you might expect ‘Mirante’ to be some kind of David Byrne/Rei Momo collection without words but there’s no obvious bossa footprint running through Storring’s soundscape. The music here is more an impression of that bewildering exotica drawn from his partner’s Brazilian connections together with trips to the country during which he’s absorbed the sights and sounds as a visitor. ‘Mirante’ is the word often used in Brazil for the way a tourist sees the country so Storring shows integrity in choosing this title for the album. He’s acknowledging his lens is different.
This sense of self and how that can shift depending on time and place are notions which seem to underpin the pulsating, multi-dimensional pieces on ‘Mirante’. Storring originally wrote three of the tracks, Roxa I, II and III, for a Yvonne Ng contemporary dance performance which drew from the same themes of identity and perception. So there’s a clear synergy between these tunes and his Brazilian informed compositions which binds the album together into an impressive conceptual and musical whole.
Roxa I opens up Storring’s ‘Mirante’, a piece on an inner journey from the gentle roll of time-lapsed chords through brief percussive sections which scuttle, scurry, dance then pause. The whole network proliferates, layers of phrases on guitar, keys, drums and chimes, regenerating and repeating to create a crescendo of pulsating electro acoustic orchestration. To consolidate Roxa II builds from the same orbiting chord and chiming pattern but with more emphasis on the symphonic. It’s gently swelling and new-age patient with a natural Hiroshi Yoshimura flow which peaks then suddenly fragments into shattering chimes and staccato whistles. The unexpected should always be expected in Storring’s work
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A similar richly organic ambience is nurtured on the pastoral Parque Tingui, where the chirp of crickets and bird song from the Curitiba parkland fill silences between the lonely monotones. Elsewhere on ‘Mirante’ Storring completes his sonic travelogue with more strident panoramas. The title track begins at a micro level, the percussive rummaging, testing strings and loosening tabla flutters sound like an ensemble preparing to take flight. The music then eases forward tentatively with zithering strums, chorale hums and muffled beats until there’s another pause for breath. Finally the swooning voices and strings burst out a second time edging towards the full thrust of a samba bateria. This sequence is repeated a third time, structurally the same but with intricate shifts in timbre, tone, melody and rhythms to paint from a different perspective.
There’s this lean into minimalism and Philip Glass frameworks with Storring’s compositions on ‘Mirante’ but they’re given his own kaleidoscopic twist. Much of that is down to the tunes’ primary rhythmic intent which a track like Falta de Ar underlines in triplicate. Almost entirely percussive, this is a thrilling assemblage of locomotive power, full of timbale tension, metronomic ticks, frantic chocks and cymbal whispers. The stunning multi-tracked creativity make it impossible to pinpoint how something so inticate can sound so fresh and spontaneous. Equally impressive, Terra da Garoa lopes towards more urban/industrial funk syncopation with its crunched beats, bass rips and no-wave sax skronks, soundtracking a more discordant cityscape.
‘Mirante’ ultimately makes for a different kind of layered soundscape, one in which the complex workings are on view. The staggering range of instruments Storring plays on the album, his minimal use of electronic processing, his diligent over-dubbing approach demand both a laser-beam focus on minute sonic details and an overall clarity in what his music is trying to convey. As the elegiac sinfonia of Roxa III brings the album to its pirouetting close, it’s a whole picture which you take away, knowing that on your next visit to ‘Mirante’ that impression is likely to shift but be equally fulfilling.
Get your copy of ‘Mirante‘ by Nick Storring from your local record store or direct from Wea are Busy Bodies HERE
