I have a thing for improvisations on church organ. And cello. And Iceland.
The church organ thing can be traced back to the first time I watched Carnival of Souls some time in the late ’60s, wherein Candace Hilligoss plays a church organist haunted by beings from beyond the grave (not zombies). Scared (scarred?) me to death. As far as cello goes, everyone loves the cello (except beings from beyond the grave) and Iceland is a sparsely populated cold place filled with magic, wonder, and music. Or so my imagination tells me.
Lucy Railton (cello) and Kit Downes (organ at Skálholt Cathedral) sat down for a 3-hour improvisation session and Subaerial is the result—41 minutes carved out into glacial movements dancing and delighting in air.
Railton and Downes began playing together 13 years ago, appearing on each other’s releases over time. Railton’s records have appeared on Editions Mego, PAN, and Modern Love, while Downes has a pair of albums on ECM. If you know these labels, you can get more than a hint of each musician’s general genre approach—contemporary/classical and jazz in the broadest sense respectively with Ambient crossing over into both.
On Subaerial they leave genres behind, creating music that transforms into mist, mixing in the lofty heights of Skálholt Cathedral, mingling within us.
Released on London-based SN Variations in August of last year, Subaerial is a journey outside time.