Pressing Clouds Passing Crowds

Description

Guitarist and composer Kim Myhr, whose previous release You l me was among the nominees for the prestigious Nordic Music Prize, wrote the piece pressing clouds passing crowds for the 2016 edition of FIMAV (International Festival of Current Music in Victoriaville) in Quebec. Myhr is featured on 12-string acoustic guitar, alongside the Quatuor Bozzini, a renowned string quartet from Montreal that works extensively in contemporary and new music, here joined by percussionist Ingar Zach and poet Caroline Bergvall reading her own texts. "Inspired by my meeting with Caroline Bergvall in 2015 and by the music of Robert Ashley that I was listening to at the time, I wanted to create a longer piece, evolving slowly, centered around a voice," explains Myhr. "The composition is in six parts, which blend together to resemble a single piece that gradually changes its state of mind." The result is a triumphant success where music and text seem intimately linked, with Caroline Bergvall's hypnotic voice and incantatory delivery sometimes acting as an instrument, while the drones, plucks, and glissandos of the quartet provide strong punctuation and a rich musical counterpoint to this evolving story, which, in itself, is a complex layering of sounds, meanings, and narrative. Unusually, music and text are treated equally, and they can be listened to separately or in symbiosis.