Andrew Liles - The Dying Submariner: A Concerto for Piano and Reverberation in Four Movements (Beta-Lactam Ring)

Sub-aquatic rumbles shot through with ice-hot piercing liquid overtones which themselves become fuller and warmer as higher fundamentals chase them—this is the world inhabited by Liles’ concerto. For those yet unfamiliar with this composer/performer, Andrew Liles is obviously one of the most gifted sound-sculptors currently active. He is often in the company of Nurse with Wound and associated acts, such as Matt Waldron and most recently Faust, but he has a strongly unique voice; If I say that his music draws equally on surrealism and drone, the pronouncement says nothing of the overwhelming and often awe-inspiring diversity he brings to every release, of which there are now many. On any given disc, Electroacoustic compositions alternate, jump-cut fashion, with swirlingly miasmic yet somehow precisely minimal layers of morphing staticity.

The Dying Submariner has feet firmly planted, or buried, in lush drone and swell, but it’s as much a study in attack and decay. The opening of the third movement, awash in soft slowly changing colors, is suddenly riddled with insurgent notes that momentarily assume all focus. Liles chooses these renegade pitches with care and executes each attack with equal concern. On a more macrocosmic level, the first movement resembles a long glance upward from some deep abyss, but each gesture also contains intimations of the whole. As complex as some of the sound sources for Liles’ work can be, this is an example of minimal means achieving maximal results.

My copy came with an equally interesting work for bowed guitar, The Dead Submariner. Similar in intent if not in execution, it’s a gorgeous soundscape, harsh and sweet by turn. As fine as these pieces are though, they constitute only a tiny fraction of Liles’ accomplishments. Long may this versatile and endlessly fascinating composer thrive!

~ Marc Medwin