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blogue@press-4180
press@4180
[…] Mi riferisco alla nuova opera del chitarrista/compositore Tim Brady che con My 20th Century ci regala la sua personalissima sintesi del secolo appena concluso. Dapprima è la narrazione per chitarra sola di Strumming (curiosamente dedicata a John Lennon), una sorta di crocevia tra il Fripp più estremo e una sorta di Mike Oldfield in formato lisergico. Poi tocca al post-serialismo di Traces, composizione molto ardita per quintetto semi-acustico che, successivamente, lascia il campo ai quasi venti minuti di Hommage à Rosa Luxemburg. Anche qui siamo proiettati nel cuore delle avanguardie del primo novecento dove un lacerante paesaggio elettronico ospita lunghi fraseggi per quartetto d’archi, situazione che - sebbene con una dose di ulteriore drammaticità - viene riproposta in Double Quartet (Hommage à Dmitri Chostakovich) articolata in tre movimenti: Impossible Pizzicato Machine, An Infinity of Four e Hockey Canon, Fugue che vede nell’armonizzazione introspettiva del movimento centrale il suo momento migliore. L’uscita è completata da un dvd che ripropone le medesime composizioni abbinandole ad un percorso visivo.
blogue@press-4133
press@4133

blogue@press-4143
press@4143

blogue@press-4014
press@4014
The name of Tim Brady regularly appears in the columns of Vital Weekly. This time with his multimedia project My 20th Century, subtitled as a ‘music/video/theatre narrative in 4 works’. CD and DVD contain the same compositions in the identical performance. The dvd has as an extra the beautiful videos from artists Martin Messier and Oana Suteu that were shown during performance. To exclude any misunderstanding, the dvd contains no pictures of the performance. Usually I feel very ambiguous about multimedia-projects. Personally I don’t need pictures if the music satisfies me, nor the other way around. But with each dvd-release like this one, I try to put my prejudices aside. And in this case I have to reconsider my views on this point. Music and the videos are very worthwhile, and I felt no urge to put one of them down. On the other hand, whether the combination of these two media produce something that is bigger then their sum, is still a question for me. BradyBrady started this project in 2003 when the first work was composed. The others followed in 2005. The works are performed by his own ensemble Bradyworks and Quator Molinari. Strumming (for John Lennon) is the most accessible of all four works. It is written for multiple guitars and built from limited musical material. Simple riffs and repeated and alternately textured. Because repetition is a key element is this composition it has a hypnotizing effect. This is underlined by the video that is constructed from pictures of a hand of a person strumming a guitar. Traces is a work for guitar, piano, percussion, saxophone and sampler and brings tribute to another guitarist, namely jazz musician Charlie Christian. Brady deconstructed a guitar solo by Christian hat he played in concert with Bennie Goodman in 1941. By doing this BradyBrady abstracted from jazz and choose a pulsating, tight and severe sounding new music jacket as we know from earlier works by BradyBrady. Hommage à Rosa Luxemburg (Casino Adagio) is written for string quartet plus electronics. The electronic environment is ever changing and full of detail. For this work BradyBrady took inspiration from a painting by Jean-Paul Riopelle, “a work obsessed with ghostly images of birds and nature”. The CD closes with Double Quartet, divided in three sections this ambitious work reflects on the life of Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich. It features a “virtual string quartet” plus piano, saxophone, percussion and electric guitar. How the collaboration between BradyBrady and video artists Martin Messier and Oana Suteu came about I don’t know. From the pictures I suppose that they were chosen and created in function of the compositions by Brady. Oana Suteu did the video for Hommage à Rosa Luxemburg. Martin Messier made the other three ones. Martin Messier is a composer and performer as well, and the fascination for the relation between sound and images, unites his talents. Oana Suteu is from Romania, where she studied at the Film and Theatre Academy in Bucharest.
blogue@press-4010
press@4010
Bradyworks & Quatuor Molinari together constitute the audio half of a compelling new multimedia project, My 20th Century, by Montréal-based guitarist/composer Tim Brady. The two compositions align many styles Brady has previously employed but, right off, seems best suited to the voluminous chamber. With a film by videographers Martin Messier (also a renowned French-Canadian musician) and Oanu Suteu exhibited alongside four guitar-led narratives, Brady eloquently melds important artistic and social developments of the 20th century. Together, through abstraction and recognizable archetypes, it’s all very moving, at times even overwhelming. An interesting project, but Brady’s half of the deal is what I’ll casually return to.
blogue@press-3935
press@3935
Also available in digital format (MP3, etc.) at your favourite online store.
CD-Audio + 1 DVD-Video