ALBUQUERQUE-based Bryce Hample, one-third of future sampledelia explorers REIGHNBEAU, also makes beautiful post-classical ambience as Hedia; and today he’s premiering the nature-minimalist video for “Untitled 1”, a lovely essay in viola de gamba (or viol), and piano, in which Bryce explores the luxurious reverberation of that instrument.
We’ve embedded the video below; fans of Rachel’s and Boxhead Ensemble, come gather round the fireside and soak this up.
“Untitled 1” is taken from Hedia’s latest release, Quartets; it’s an audiovisual work. The sonic angle is borne from a deep appreciation and exploration of the acoustics of Albuquerque’s Craft Gallery, using only the natural reverberation of the concrete gallery space. Each overdub was performed from a different location of the room, starting in the corners.
The strings swell and pulse at a very humanistic tempo, biorhythmically; each surge carries with it little teases and glitters of piano, other drones, like seabirds above ocean breakers. While on the one hand it seems to embody the fragility of existence, on yet another it’s wholly alive and blood-red vivacious.
Accompanying three of the compositions from Quartets are short films employing lofting drone footage that themselves capture the subtlest of changes in the visual environment; clouds so slow over trees, winter stillness.
If anything, these works are outrospective: while touching upon inner responses, the whole makes the listener/viewer (experiencer?) relate outwardly with the beauty that really is, still out there, away from the AllThis that troubles and occasionally engulfs us. For these times, la musique juste.
Bryce says: “Hedia is spacial music, creating a place to inhabit, if only temporarily.
“Musical spaces to encompass the listener, unfolding organically and spaciously, in a blanket of drifting piano chords, viola da gamba, brass, subdued guitar, and tape manipulations.”
Hedia’s Quartets is available now on digital and cassette formats; to purchase your copy, visit Bandcamp, here.
