Chantal Michelle
All Things Might Spill
Shelter Press
All Things Might Spill is an album about tension; though it may technically be classified as ambient music, Chantal Michelle’s background as a dancer makes her more interested in movement than mood. Think of an avalanche—not the sudden event, but the slow accumulation that precedes the collapse. Each track here is like watching the snow come down, gathering weight as it proceeds down the mountain.
The drama of the record derives from Michelle’s close attention to sound and her careful manipulation of timbre. On “Magnetic Field I” and “Magnetic Field II,” she takes Alma Laprida’s tromba marina—a large, medieval European stringed instrument—and highlights its characteristic rasp with subtle synth harmonies. She does much the same on “Breath Observation (for clarinet),” drawing attention not to the notes that Severin Black plays, but to the quality of their tone. The title track consists of a hovering vocal by Alliyah Enyo that is anchored by a field recording of the Manhattan-Brooklyn ferry, a necessary ballast until it drops away to let Enyo’s voice drift and new colors emerge. Michelle’s sophisticated use of texture is a welcome reprieve from a crowd of “spacy” or “dreamy” ambient albums. Rather than taking us out of this world, she lets us hear it anew.
 |
|