#neo-classical

[vintagehomecollection]

Fine draped cotton softens the lines of this window, in a style suggestive of neo-classical window treatments.

Traditional Country Style, 1991

[livesunique]

Kedleston Hall, Kedleston, Derbyshire, United Kingdom,

The marble hall with its elaborate plasterwork executed to the designs of Robert Adam. The fluting of the alabaster columns was carried out in situ.

Photo: Paul Highnam/©Country Life

[whatjanesaw]

Roberto Ferri http://www.robertoferri.net

[fortunaestalta]

[uhhgoodd]

Paintings by American artist Maxfield Parrish (1870–1966)

[sposdollarbingems]

Hajime Mizoguchi - Shadow Of Doubt (The Vision of Escaflowne {Original Motion Picture Soundtrack 2} [1996]

[dustedmagazine]

Chronotope Project — Kaleidoscope (Spotted Peccary)

Jeffrey Ericson Allen’s Chronotope Project embodies narrative convergence, which is as it should be. The cellist, composer and philosopher has spent much of his life as a storyteller, but in recent years, he’s reshaped his own narrative to focus more on the music that has always been a primary focus. Since his librarian days concluded, the mode of inquiry has shifted, so that now, he tells stories in music more than in words. His chief vehicle, the afore-mentioned Chronotope Project, is a solo effort that labeling “ambient” resides somewhere between a deserved badge of honor and a near disservice. Rather, this music shares certain characteristics with one of Allen’s influences, Brian Eno, in that it can function in the background but rewards deeper listening with substructures of intrigue and beauty. His newest album for Spotted Peccary, Kaleidoscope, exemplifies Allen’s storytelling as it becomes overtly autobiographical.

Following a similar path to 2023’s Chronology, the new compendium presents all facets of Allen’s artistic development in dialogue with itself and its influences. We hear revamps of material from previous projects, Chronotope and beyond, along with what seems to be previously unreleased excursions. The remixes tend toward a winning combination of unity and clarity, adding both nuance and power to the originals. “Medicine Wheel,” a track from 2013, hits harder from the outset in this remix but with more textural disparity, especially in the ascending and descending arpeggiations propelling it forward. They emerge that much more brightly amidst the silky serenade of layered light and susurration against which the arpeggiated rhythms counterpoint. To experience all of this completely, it should be heard following “Ariadne’s Thread,” the album opener and a more but by no means exclusively acoustic track from Allen’s time in the group Confluence. What becomes remarkably clear in the juxtaposition is the composer’s love of rhythmic texture as it morphs into, or is subsumed by, motivic invention. Hearing the pieces programmed this way erodes internal and external borders as Allen’s long-fostered vision is elucidated.

It would be folly, and wrong-headed, to attempt a description of each narrative in relationship to the others. Experiencing Kaleidoscope is a personal journey, one of intersecting moments and ever-increasing cinematic scope. Sonic tropes pervade each immersion, some readily identifiable, like the drums and Tambura-drone on “Dance of the Raven Man,” and others tantalizingly elusive, as when a hint of wind or water wafts across the soundstage in “Geosynchronous.” It has been reduced in this remix while the vocal elements are elevated, the whole now a study in rhythmic subtlety and Protean timbral shading.

It is difficult to imagine a more achingly beautiful disc conclusion than the radically reworked “Clear Bell Ringing in Empty Sky.” Motion and stasis exist in prayer-like symbiosis, the melodies unfolding in orchestral harmonies implied as often as clearly stated. Nature-adjacent sounds provide a pulse simultaneously enhanced and checked by the convergence of scale, ghostly slide and, of course, tintinnabulation, until all recedes for the chorale finale. Its unfolding bespeaks the nested narratives, from moment to moment and in macrocosm, shaping the music and its constituent soundworlds. Each gesture tells a story of wisdom, obviously born of long meditation, commensurate with the album’s accompanying poem, a perfect encapsulation of the album and of Allen’s compositions; sounds mirror a process obviously fundamental to his experience: “Lives appear and disappear/Their themes weave counterpoint/Into the fabric of the world.”

Marc Medwin

[eopederson]

Carnegie Free Library, Eureka, 2024.