Le Lendemain - Fires
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Label: Home Normal
Year: 2009
Format: CD
Those of you who may have read my review of Danny Norbury’s debut on Lacies will already be aware of my high expectations for this album by enigmatically named Le Lendemain. We are on very safe grounds with the excellent label Home Normal curated by Ian Hawgood and Ben Jones – whose catalogue has simply grown from outstanding to stunning throughout 2009 with its high quality releases. Yours truly feels simply like he’s missed a beat when now jumping over a couple of releases to focus on the new Fires album from new project, Le Lendemain, but rest assured, we’ll come back to previous Home Normal releases too, they’re all simply too good to miss.
But here now – Le Lendemain is the collaboration of David Wenngren – aka Library Tapes – and said, Danny Norbury, who now go all the way with their collaboration under one moniker instead of lending each other gracious touches on each others releases. Continuing the fine traditions of Sketches and Light In August – the latter of which saw release on Lacies also earlier in the year – Le Lendemain feels like a series of deeply personal and heartfelt dialogues between the two musicians – and taking on the feeling of a soundtrack to a distinctly artful film noir set in France (maybe somewhat influenced by the tracks’ French titles).
The album combines the serene and beautiful piano and cello of the two musicians in seemingly simplistic melodies, but under which lie an immense richness and depth which puts the listener into a state of tuning in and out. As such, the music becomes difficult to describe detailed and accurately enough, and also implicates that the compositions are somewhat demanding of the listener. However – that aside – this is simply a brilliant piece of music, and the coarse breathing sounds on Att Andas (“to breathe” in Swedish) is just one example of nearness – and on the other hand the long-stretched, almost wailing, strings of Lois induce the air of a shimmering, abstract cloud of sound through which Norbury’s cello suddenly pierces to create lovely melancholies and at least for yours truly – rids you of any worries or hectic thoughts of your everyday life.
I had already pegged Norbury’s Light In August as the best of 2009, but I’m left completely mesmerised by this and consider if not maybe Fires should share joint top spot of that list this year. MUST BUY if you know what’s good for you!
Web Resources:
Le Lendemain on myspace
Home Normal label website
