David Grubb – Nano
Shake ‘Um ‘Dud – 4 June 2020
Nothing really prepares you for David Grubb’s new album, Nano, either musically or psychologically. Two years in the making, and over five years since his first solo effort, he suggests, “‘Nano’ is an instrumental commentary on the dark side of modern society. As greed and power outweigh fairness and logic, we recklessly hurtle towards calamity with little means to protect our future.”
Opening with a drone, followed by the sounds of the band warming up Intro can be a little unsettling. There’s a sense one needs to expect the unexpected, which is the point. High Rise, an album while untraditional, followed a more conventional path. Nano is something quite different in nature. More jarring, at times sounding like a prog-folk hybrid.
The initial blasts of Bliss is Ignorance tends to unsettle expectations even further. Swirling gusts of violin mix with phased instrumentation before starting to settle into a groove. Annie Perry’s clarinet establishes a low-end presence, then Daniel Whitting’s guitar and Corben Lee’s piano enter the fray. Everything drops away to just acoustic guitar and clarinet before violin, and martial drums reenter the mix.
Insistent, quickly decaying keyboard notes play against a longing violin on S.O.S. Everything drops out as the bass enters. When the violin reemerges, it establishes a more imperative tone. Sections and instruments play off against each other with no clear victor established. Insistence and longing arise in equal measure.
There is an unsettling feeling to the solo piano introducing The Space In Between. Additional keyboards provide a counterpoint halfway through the piece, followed by Grubb on violin. Playing in stark contrast to the more insistent music that preceded it, The Space In Between intimates the existence of other pathways to different future.
An unrelenting violin squares off against Annie Perry’s more steadying clarinet, while guitar and piano establish an alternate expression to Super. Eventually, roles shift, and the violin of Grubb plays the steadying, romantic tone to Perry’s insistent clarinet phrase. This constant shifting of phrase and focus suggests there are elements at play demanding a resolute focus.
There is little doubt that the world David Grubb sees is one where it is far too easy to be pessimistic. Just like the music on Nano, there are moments of great beauty. Grubb seems to suggest that we are at a crossroad and where we go moving forward will have huge implications. Yet as Grubb suggests, “Still. There is hope.”
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