CD – Village Green Recordings

Snow Palms, a band now comprised of David Sheppard, Christopher Leary and Matt Gooderson – has released their third album again for Village Green Recordings. The term ‘post-minimalist’ is sometimes used to describe this collective, implying a musical style influenced by the works of Terry Riley and Philip Glass. The impression we derive, however, is something milder and less ideological than the minimalist school, focused more on melodic, airy developments in a specific orchestral key as opposed to the pure iteration of specific phrases with no real harmonic structure. It is true, however, that Village Green Recordings itself underlines the iteration between minimalism, new classical music and electronic music, elements that are in some sense typical of the trio, the result of intricate and highly sensitive loops, with an imaginative and sweet development. The release starts with “Atom Dance”, a nine-minute-long opening track, hypnotic and insinuating, filled with softly sparkling vocals and with an almost exotic flavor, framed by some enveloping and ringing interactions. “Everything Ascending” is slightly longer than the former composition and shows some persuasive voices and a very musical flux. The mood is edifying and very quiet in the following “Evening Rain Gardens”, a very spiritual and meditative track. Here the voice of Megan, the wife of Matt Gooderson, stands out. In “Landwaves”, the title track, the crossover between drums and synth is also very quiet, seraphic but insistent, just as the samples of wind instruments are measured and pointillist. Even in the remaining three tracks, before concluding with the radio version of “Atom Dance”, the approach remains the same. Similarly, in our opinion the group’s performance reaches the highest levels of lightness in the live performances.

 

Snow Palms – Land Waves