The Ciderhouse Rebellion – Untold
Nimbus Records – Out Now
For a long time now I have been convinced that some of the richest and most exciting music comes from an improvised session or sessions (see Stone Soup, Adam’s album with Cormac Byrne, mentioned below). Like with bird song and wind chimes, there can be magic in the unplanned and if the chemistry is there in the room, the results can be wonderful. A fine example of this now comes my way in the shape of a new disc by violinist Adam Summerhayes and accordionist Murray Grainger, operating under their Ciderhouse Rebellion duo name. The two musicians have been working on a record for nearly five years now, which was finished one evening slightly earlier than expected, leading to them sitting back down together and pressing record, before simply playing and seeing what emerged. The more meticulous second release from Adam and Murray will be a fascinating listen, especially in comparison to Untold, which is a stream of consciousness work of nearly fifty minutes, divided into two chapters and a final short epilogue.
It is also a work of startling, immediate beauty, disregarding the shackles of track parameters and continually discovering melodies and forms within the loose label of folk tradition; indeed, there are certainly classical structures in here and plenty of theatrical drama, especially when the pair slip into a groove and have a little race together, before easing off and coming back to moments of gorgeous, spacious, quiet playing. Both of these musicians are finely and thoroughly trained veterans in their genres, which obviously gives them some sturdy footing in this setting, but it takes but a few seconds of listening to the first chapter to know that their musical relationship is deep and intuitive and their confidence in performing improvised music is utterly sound. It is easy when playing spontaneous music to try to plug all of the gaps with notes and sound, but it takes experience and integrity to leave these spaces unfilled. There is a point towards the end of the first piece, about twenty-five minutes in where Murray goes completely quiet for a minute or so, after a joint dance strand, letting Adam play a slower and lower tune, before subtly edging back into the mix. After some of the more frenetic parts of the movement, the far more gradual closing few minutes certainly equal it in power, having a particularly meditative effect on the listener.
Of course, in many ways, this project is reminiscent of Adam’s recording with bodhrán player Cormac Byrne, which I mentioned above, and Untold album stands up to that one, which is an accolade indeed. For Stone Soup the pair took very few instruments into the studio with them and worked without structures to produce a stunning album, but with this one Adam and Murray have arguably gone a creative step further, with both musicians catching themselves off-guard and sitting down without any obvious plan of attack and only stopping after the music came to a natural halt, thirty or so minutes in, resulting in ‘Chapter One’. Obviously pleased with the playback, the pair sat down again to ask more questions of this spontaneous setting and played out a shorter sixteen-minute piece that immediately has more of a sense of narrative or the feeling of a journey within it. If anything, ‘Chapter Two’ has an even higher sense of self-esteem than the first, with the duo wonderfully in sync throughout some highly complex parts. It is a more concise piece than the first and perhaps more cinematic or theatrical; it could be easy to imagine it accompanying a short silent film and it is easy to allow yourself to be carried off to broad and beautiful landscapes when listening to it.
In comparison to the two former pieces, ‘Epilogue’ is a very different beast and a very small one, coming in at just over two minutes, making it very much a brief but somehow fitting end to the quiet and mighty epic that has just unfolded. For this miniature, Murray decided to use the reedier accordina, played by blowing instead of squeezing, which adds a certain mournful clarity to the gorgeous melody. Unlike the vast outdoor feeling of the previous forty-seven minutes, ‘Epilogue’ feels like a chamber piece, a reminiscence of sorts told from a more confined space in a different time. It is a fascinating little tune that easily stands up by itself but works even better as part of the whole, which is certainly how the album should be considered, and it is a lovely, understated way to end such a musical voyage.
It is incredibly difficult to create a whole album length amount of music, but arguably far more so without any discernible plan, and it’s even tougher to achieve something that is so immediately enjoyable but multi-textured and finely nuanced. It is also difficult to review this kind of album because each listener will interpret its content very differently, presumably including its creators, who, we can only assume, were as surprised by the consistency of quality and the cohesion of the outcome as I was. Murray Grainger mentions in his notes that at the end of the first session when listening back, he turned to Adam and said ‘there’s all of my life in there’. When the chord structures, plans, preparations and directions are taken away, the musician looks somewhere else to find the magic. Put simply, with Untold this pair have created beautiful, natural music that is unrestrained and dramatic in places and soft to the point of being barely there in others. It is a rich, durable and mercurial sound that will reward many listens by providing something new to the ear every time. Adam Summerhayes and Murray Grainger have set their bar very high with this one, let’s see how their ‘planned’ album sounds in comparison.
UNTOLD is out now
Order it here:
https://soundcloud.com/fromthewhitehouse/the-ciderhouse-rebellion-untold-chapter-two/s-oF0ra
More here: www.theciderhouserebellion.com