Touching Extremes (IT)

Suspended between a slightly material kind of ambient music – found objects and muffled aural particles disturbing carillon-like melodies reminiscent of a residual innocence – and its character of soundtrack for an installation, For Myria is the recording debut of Sheffield’s Jodi Cave, originally a clarinettist, whose main influences are told to be artists such as Yves Klein, Ad Reinhardt and Agnes Martin. Visuals more than notes, indeed; no wonder that Cave just says that “Myria sounds yellow” to describe what the title refers to. For each piece the author chooses a minimum of hues, comprehensive of electronically treated sources like the dripping water of the title track, to describe something akin to that kind of involuntary physical activity that human bodies exercise while sleeping, movements that are not decided but prevent us from assuming those contorted positions that cause difficulties to the circulation of blood in our limbs. The record flows with a certain grace, at times letting the listeners focus on fixed, if often pretty frail textures made of adjacent harmonics and wavering resonances, “Untitled” being the best example in that sense. Music whose subsistence depends on the level of non-attachment to the surroundings that the receiver brings into the equation: if one looks for abundance of content, delusions wait around the corner. But managing to deliver our head from interferences by escaping from the fear of what could happen one hour later will brand this experience an enriching one.