Missing Island by Snowdrops
VINYL / DIGITAL AVAILABLE HERE :
>>> https://snowdrops.bandcamp.com/album/missing-island-2
Injazero Records INJA018 - Releases November 25, 2022
1. Retour à la terre
2. Firebirds
3. Land of waves
4. Nostalgia de la luz
5. Radioactive breath
6. Comme un souffle qui vient...
7. Mémoires élementaires
Introduction by Injazero :
«Missing Island is the sequel to the highly acclaimed Volutes (2020), and again sees multi-instrumentalists Christine Ott and Mathieu Gabry joined by violist Anne-Irène Kempf on most tracks. This new chapter in the natural history of Snowdrops is lent an earthier texture by the hand-pumped organ, performed by Christine Ott.
The opening of the album ‘Retour à la terre’ could, explain Snowdrops, borrow these few verses from Rainer Maria Rilke: « Everything is gestation and bringing forth. To let each impression and each germ of feeling come to completion wholly in itself, in the dark, in the inexpressible, the unconscious, beyond the reach of one's own intelligence, and await with deep humility and patience the birth-hour of a new clarity »
First single ‘Firebirds’ unfolds like a fiery dance for piano, strings and ondes Martenot, on which Ott lets her inimitable technique speak in a series of lyrical glissandos from the lowest to the highest register. This evocation of the four elements continues with ‘Land of Waves’, music for the great outdoors, on which Mathieu Gabry simultaneously plays piano and analog synthesizer.
The album's second half offers a deeper and metaphysical turn. ‘Nostalgia de la luz’ is clearly inspired by the documentary of the same name, directed by Patricio Guzmán; in the movie, astronomers from all over the world gather in the Atacama Desert to observe the stars. It is also a place where the dryness of the soil keeps human remains intact: those of mummies, explorers, but also the bones of political prisoners of the past dictatorship. While astronomers scan the galaxies in search of probable extraterrestrial life, at the foot of the observatories, women move the stones in search of their missing relatives.
In their own way the last three pieces each reduce this verticality, this connection between the infinitely small and the infinitely large, the past and the present, the human and the environment. Missing Island is also a story of Paradise and Paradise lost, a recurring theme in Christine Ott’s discography (TABU, Time to Die…). At the end, the trio produces a rainbow of feelings that could equally evoke Hania Rani, Warren Ellis and Esmerine, but in a personal breath that is unique to Snowdrops. »
Credits
All music composed by Snowdrops.
Christine Ott - Harmonium d'inde (1,6) Ondes Martenot (2,3,4) & Piano (7) // Mathieu Gabry - Piano (1-6) & Synths (3,5,6,7) // Anne-Irène Kempf - Viola (1-4,6,7)
Recorded at l'Auditorium de la Fondation Wurth, Erstein, on July 30th, 2020 | Edited by Mathieu Gabry between September and December 2020 | Mixed by Benoit Burger between January and April 2021 | Mastered by Sean McCann at Recital, April 2021 | Artwork by Lali Torma | Design by Pelin Morris
snowdrops.bandcamp.com/album/missing-island-2
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« A wonderful combination of piano,
strings, electronics and ondes Martenot »
HANNAH PEEL, BBC RADIO 3
« Fusing modern classical and electronic, Missing Island is the highlight of the year in its class. (...) Never predictable, never mundane ; a special album. »
LOUDER THAN WAR
« What is the Missing Island?
Snowdrops dances around the title, touching on multiple themes: the elements, the unconscious, the search for meaning and revelation. »
A CLOSER LISTEN
« As in any Snowdrops piece, the gesture, the interpretation and the listening of all three of us is the soil that allows the piece to come to life. (...) it’s as if the trio is following an invisible vegetal force, a sort of tropism that sometimes unites us and sometimes distances us from each other… » CHRISTINE OTT,
INTERVIEW FOR HEADPHONE COMMUTE
TEASER : youtu.be/CdFsboh9_ag
