BRITISH composer Matt Emery, who calls the lovely Injazero Records home, has launched a series of recordings focusing on one instrument at a time; and for his first EP in the series has chosen to shine a light on the cello, which is starting to find a bigger appreciation as a standalone instrument through the work of Clarice Jensen and Oliver Coates.
Spotlight Series: Cello, out next month, is a collection of a half-dozen pieces written as a collection of solos and layered performances for the instrument.
As anyone familiar with Matt’s aesthetic will know, he seeks to tell a story in his work; and that applies here too, with the six tracks of the forthcoming EP telling the story of a samurai warrior heading into battle.
That tension – the moments waiting, poised like a coiled spring – are told of in the track he’s dropped today by way of announcement of the EP, “Anxiety Mist”, which you can hear below.
It’s made up of 15 individually-performed lines, we’re told, and is performed by Matt’s friend and collaborator Fraser Bowles.
It rises, rises ever so slowly, tonally, as the body adjusts and readies itself for the travails ahead; you can feel that slow microtonal slide in your belly, the expectancy, the fear, the adrenalin building.
Thankfully for your heart rate, it breaks to a more open, if no less portentous pizzicato at its core; revolving around a rising glissando figure, eventually joined by building harmonies tick-tocking towards the inevitable. Atmosphere? In spades.
Matt Emery’s Spotlight Series: Cello will be released digitally by Injazero Records on April 9th, and is available to pre-order now over at the label’s Bandcamp page.
Follow Matt Emery on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube.
