Collectress – Different Geographies
Peeler Records – 6 March 2020
The passage and journey that led to ‘Different Geographies’ began back in 2000 when four young musicians met in Brighton. Nine years later, they had evolved into Collectress, a project whose development was restricted by time demands rather than the lack of a shared vision. In 2014, they released a debut album, the teasingly conceived Mondegreen, a collection that playfully fused classical themes with naturalistic elements, and one or two hidden surprises.
The process of evolution continued over a further five years, as members of Collectress individually pursued careers in academia, science, and dance, and contributed to music projects with the likes of Rambert Dance, Bats for Lashes, Patrick Wolf and Radiohead’s Philip Selway. These diversions, alongside commitments of motherhood, overseas residencies, and research projects from the Arctic to the Amazon, left little time for Collectress to create new music together. Finally, after six years, Different Geographies is to be unleashed into a world that, in many ways, is very different from the one that existed when the quartet first met twenty years ago.
Different Geographies understandably became a statement about inevitability, chance, and separations of place and time. It is an exploration of both traditions and technology, a fusion of neo-classical chamber pop and radical experimentation. It is varied and connected, intuitive and vibrant, and draws together experiences and influences from across the globe. It is grounded in science yet explores a spiritual form that looks beyond the laws of physics.
Collectress’ sound gravitates around the twin cellos of Alice Eldridge and Rebecca Waterworth, together with the flute and guitar of Caroline Weekes and the violin of Quinta. Their output is predominantly instrumental, although all four also contribute vocals. These, besides the phonetic chanting of ‘She Must Shut Her Eyes’, often take the form of ethereal, sometimes angelic, choral enhancements which both nestle and rise alongside parallel sonic enhancement.
But is the variety and scope of the keyboard score and electronic effects that launches Different Geographies into many separate and elliptical orbits, creating an album that is so much more far-reaching and eclectic than just a collection of post-modern chamber compositions. During the laptop feedback that interrupts ‘Archive’, the effect is disturbing to the point of concern, yet is balanced by beautiful and hypnotic scoring. In ‘Harbour’, siren-like voices and sombre cello somehow overcome an ominous sense of loss to create a sense of safety and sanctuary.
And in ‘Mauswerk’, a track where the plucked cellos establish a basic rhythm before shakers and synths intercede, the strings again are allowed to adopt a mournful and melancholic path. The geometric dance that ensues pitches electronic against natural sounds creating a spacial quality that reminds of John Tavener, yet without drawing theological conclusion or postulate.
There is a cinematic feel to parts of this collection that again nods to the minimalism of composers like Philip Glass – there are moments within ‘In The Streets, In The Fields’ that remind of his soundtrack for ‘The Thin Blue Line’. Elsewhere, as in the opening bars of ‘Landing’ with its handclaps and Supertramp keyboards, there develops a flamenco dance with cellos and guitar that may could have been inspired by a Steve Reich canon.
‘Words’ is a two-part composition which opens with distant circling of flute and cello in ‘Saturn’ and concludes, seven tracks later, with closer encounters of planetary form in ‘Mars’. In some ways, it is this piece that most coherently defines ‘Different Geographies’, and paves the path towards the meandering finale of ‘Roaming Bones’, a piece that intentionally combines all previous explorations and guides us to a deliberately ambiguous conclusion.
Different Geographies is out on 6 March
Pre-Order via Bandcamp: https://collectress.bandcamp.com/
https://www.collectress.co.uk/