The concept behind Blue Haze of Deep Time, Jonathan Nangle’s latest release, is both simple and admirably grandiose. He asks the question, ‘What does the sea sound like?’ and sets out to answer it by way of six deeply immersive pieces, each one utilising the language of modern composition and field recording. Befitting the size and scope of the project, he has enlisted the help of the Crash Ensemble, Ireland’s premier contemporary classical group. It’s not the first time Nangle has worked with the ensemble – there have been shared residencies, and Crash Ensemble have performed Nangle’s debut album PAUSE – but this is his first commission for the full ensemble, and it’s a perfect match.
Nangle creates the sonic basis of each individual piece by making a field recording somewhere along the coastline around Dublin. The compositions are built around the specific moods Nangle experiences, resulting in something human and personal yet rooted in place. The clue to those moods is there in the album’s title: Blue Haze of Deep Time. There is something synaesthetic about Nangle’s process. Colour seems to take on extra dimensions, and the passing of time is measured organically.
It begins, fittingly enough, with a crash of waves on shingle: an elemental rhythm in itself. The ensemble then creates a longform, droning backcloth, which, at times, seems to sit atop the waves and, at others, dives within and beneath them. Nangle is not averse to a spot of electronic manipulation here and there: the cry of a seabird is subtly altered to resemble something half-human or ghostly or alien. And there is a tension between calmness and movement, something hinted at by the title of this opening piece – Bláth Bán – which forms part of the Irish idiom for a choppy sea: Tá bláth bán ar gharraí an iascaire (white flowers are upon the fisherman’s garden).
The title track is less active, less dramatic, but follows the same formula, with the sea calling the shots. Here, the tension comes from long bursts of strings, actively courting dissonance while remaining rooted to their watery sonic bedrock. It rewards close listening, as there are countless unexpected details both in the composition and the field recording, and more of a sense of movement than you might expect from the title. The following piece, Iridescent Oceans of Gold and White Granite, takes its name from Tommy Caldwell’s description of Yosemite’s Dawn Wall rock face, in his book The Push. This kind of cultural and geographical cross-referencing is interesting: it situates Nangle’s work as part of a wider natural world and urges us to think about the interlinked nature of landscapes. The piece itself – inspired by a walk between Dalkey and Killiney has a bright shimmer, the instrumentation bent into wavy lines which are almost hallucinogenic.
By putting the sea at the forefront of his recordings, Nangle has us reevaluate the role of music in the realm of the natural world. It’s not so much that music plays a supporting role, but that it is allowed to become part of the landscape. Inbhear Glas is a slight departure from this – its piano seems to lean towards free jazz and twentieth century minimalism – but over its thirteen-minute runtime, it frequently circles back to the sea, with hints of repetition that represent Nangle’s childhood memories, as well as a dramatic moment of rupture two thirds of the way through, an unexpected and mysterious change that perhaps mirrors real life upheaval. Marginal Sea returns us to unequivocally maritime themes, imagining the Irish Sea as a kind of liminal space, and closer, Where the Grey Waves Rise and Fall Unseen, begins with a wandering neo-classical piano motif that gradually becomes more expressionistic and more expressive as the piece progresses.
The first field recordings for Blue Haze of Deep Time were made in 2020, and it has taken the intervening five years for Nangle to grow and nurture his project. But that can only be a good thing: an album like this, that deals so convincingly with notions of deep time, can’t be rushed. In the hands of Nangle and the Crash Ensemble, something beautiful has emerged from that long gestation, something that should become a touchstone of the ‘slow music’ movement.
Blue Haze of Deep Time (April 4th, 2025) Crash Records
Bandcamp: https://crashensemble.bandcamp.com/album/blue-haze-of-deep-time