In the cosmos of piano based post-classical music of recent times, the New Yorker project Bing & Ruth have held a special position to this day. It’s not that their approach to combine floatingly calming piano passages (with heavy usages of arpeggios) with ambient sounds from acoustic and electronic instruments is completely different to other musicians’ attempts in this field. However, David Moore and his fellow musicians have specialised in evoking a very particular and highly diffuse mood, ceaselessly scurrying back and forth between elegiac, intimidating and joyous. It keeps their music from becoming drippingly sentimental and adds a layer of ambivalence to their well-arranged structures, operating closely to strategies of film music without sacrificing the music’s autonomy. Presenting pictures is not even necessary because they arise by themselves. For this record, David Moore used 17 different pianos with different types of sound and playing variations to serve him as inspirations. In contrast, the cast on »No Home of the Mind« has decreased once again. For the recording, which took place on only two days with a very minimum of takes for each track, the ensemble was reduced from recently seven to now five musicians. However, this does not weaken the chamber music’s suggestive impact, it rather makes singular elements appear more clearly. Well, as clearly as can be with Bing & Ruth. Or as it should, really.
Sarah Davachi
The Head As Form’d In The Crier’s Choir
Late Music