Ben McElroy – How I Learnt to Disengage from the Pack
Slow Music Movement – Out Now
Ben McElroy has been watching his accordion fall apart, not to mention his Apogee Duet audio interface. Yet, despite that, he still managed to record How I Learnt to Disengage from the Pack, an album that recreates moments in a most deceptive way. He disarms you, taking everything you know about music and playing it in ways that find the power between the notes. As suggested by the Slow Music Movement label, McElroy takes his time. The air itself is an instrument and using it to create moments of stillness only serves to make the music more powerful.
The opening notes of “Store Away for a Winter’s Day” aren’t played on the guitar, making its entrance that much more appealing. Those phrases he plays become more effective because of the time it takes to play them. When his wordless vocals come in at the end of the track, they serve to create yet another colour.
Serving almost as a preamble to “How I Learnt to Disengage from the Pack,” notes begin to bubble up against the sounds of violin and keyboard before the violin finally offers a start sad theme butting up against the accordion. Eventually, guitar and violin take centre stage as the track moves sadly and slowly toward the moments of disengagement.
McElroy is a student of many things, including history. The album cover features two ‘Kern Babies’ from 1901. Corn harvested at the end of the season was made into human shapes, then dressed in the finest of clothes and crowned with flowers that made up the Harvest Queen. One hundred twenty-one years later, that image suggests a kind of music that exists outside of time, which is the case for McElroy. His music butts up against current fashion going in directions all his own.
There’s a haunting quality to “From Time to Time” as acoustic guitar and fiddle sometimes seem to be at odds with each other as if they are playing two different tunes. Despite that, the way the song evolves, everything turns into a unified whole, even as the violin recreates the sounds of birds on the wing. Skirting the fringes of melancholy, acoustic guitar notes serve as a counterpoint suggesting ranges of emotion are always at hand. Nothing exists on its own.
While the opening suggests nothing more than a walk through the mud, “Bed Down in the Murk” shades the brownish hues with impressionistic rushes of violin, offering something much warmer in the offing. In moments like that, it would seem McElroy has a different agenda than many other musicians. He wants to create soundscapes existing outside of time while using instruments that are largely from an older era.
While he may have disengaged from the pack, “Wolves Dance” invokes a Celtic component to go along with another wordless vocal. Not quite a waltz, the wolves seem to feel each other out before joining the fray.
A teacher by day, Ben McElroy seems to be mastering his own set of lessons on How I Learnt to Disengage from the Pack. Reengaging with the old, he has created something truly unique.
Photo Credit: LovePhotography