Bing and Ruth are the names of two characters in a short story by Amy Hempel from her book At The Gates Of The Animal Kingdom. Dogs bark, rings are lost – yet the story is, at heart, about the grief and pain of an ageing couple. Moore discovered it at the age of 19. He was struck by its structure, its language, its inner logic: multiple lives contained within just two pages.
David Moore was born in 1983 in Topeka, Kansas, into a family of preachers and musicians. He began learning piano at six, took up drums as a teenager, and went on to study piano and orchestral percussion at the Conservatory of the University of Missouri–Kansas City. Eventually he moved to New York, playing with musicians similarly engaged with atmospheric composition. From this circle emerged the ensemble he would call Bing & Ruth.
Moore now lives in Brooklyn. In an interview with The Paris Review several years ago, he spoke of how deeply Kansas still shapes him: »The wide landscapes, the horizon in every direction, the feeling of open air, the sense of not being able to find the point where everything ends, the endlessness of things… All of that still accompanies me and probably finds its way into my music.«
All of Moore’s projects share a capacity to open up expansive, spherical spaces. The compositions are reduced, but no less rigorous for that. Everything is held back just enough for gaps to emerge – spaces that allow new possibilities to surface, stirring feeling and thought.
Moore’s sound, inspirations and ideas resist easy categorisation. Ambient and contemporary composition may seem the obvious reference points, yet even these prove insufficient. With Graze The Bell, Moore retreats further still: a collection of pieces performed alone at the piano. An intimate, quiet space – one that nonetheless expands his world.
David Moore: A perfect album – as is the »Complete« edition released in the 2000s. An extraordinary band, each musician operating at the peak of their powers while charting genuinely new territory. It still sounds startlingly fresh.
Redaktion
David Moore: The piano’s magic lies in its dual capacity: in one moment it can overwhelm you completely, in the next it becomes so fragile it seems on the verge of disintegration. Peter Frankl understands this dynamic and shapes it with remarkable sensitivity.
Redaktion
David Moore: If it’s Saturday and I’m busy with Saturday things, this is probably playing in the background. The version of »You Can Have the Crown« alone deserves a medal for supreme human achievement.
David Moore: A beautiful and occasionally unsettling journey from start to finish, yet also the kind of record that can hover just beneath your conscious mind – like an embrace from the side.
David Moore: From beginning to end, a singular experience – the sort of album that brings you closer to whatever it is you feel drawn toward.
Redaktion
David Moore: Hardly a month passes without me returning to this. Authentic old-time music from a legendary family of pickers in East Tennessee. This recording cuts straight to the core.
David Moore: An intimate and deeply affecting compilation of blues 78s from the storied Mississippi Records catalogue.
David Moore: My favourite album – and likely always will be. A lifelong companion.
Redaktion
David Moore: Genuine old-time Cajun music. Recordings like this are rare, and the material captured here is truly special.
David Moore: When I hear Emahoy play, I recognise it the way I would a family member’s voice. It feels intimate and singular, yet it has also settled somewhere deep within me – like home. Far more than merely solo piano music.
