FLUID TO THE INFLUENCE
(Room40)
8/10
Chris Abrahams’ new solo opus not only offers more of his darkly brooding sound worlds, it contains the sonic equivalent of a horror movie. On One-Liter Cold Laptop sounds spear at you with such venom as might be the soundtrack to the apocalypse, or perhaps a Donald Trump presidency. The Necks’ pianist doesn’t leave you cowering for long however: the subsequent Scale Upon the Land is an almost Arcadian vision of serenity realised with piano and electronics, carrying the faintest echoes of Miles Davis’s In a Silent Way. Thereafter the dialogue between piano, organ and electronics develops and evolves, as does that between light and dark, with each piece stunningly distinctive in its textural character. Lying at the heart of Abrahams’ music is a concept of beauty that is implicitly layered with disquiet, like a Giorgio de Chirico canvas, and sometimes this sense of foreboding is actually justified by a sonic shock, an effect akin to being blasted awake from a euphoric dream by the telephone ringing.