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The Perfect Flaw
Contents
The Perfect Flaw (intro) |
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Reviews "A gorgeous and serene collection of contemporary chamber pieces. Tim Story's compositions are enigmatic gems, full of subtlety and nuance, with understated but deeply moving melodies, tinged with dissonance... With intriguing titles like 'Liquid Shadow Night,' 'Sister of the Flood,' and 'The Color of Vowels,' these lovely compositions are matched by their emotional depth, making this an immensely appealing work whose perfection is everywhere apparent." -- Reel to Real News, USA "His grand piano and synthesizer are joined by oboe, English horn, cello, and clarinet for delightful, often haunting melodies that weave tapestries of subtle emotions and imagery in a remarkably cohesive collection." -- The Toledo Blade, USA "A definitive album from this veteran composer who has quietly carved a niche for his ambient chamber music. Story's orchestrations for piano, synthesizers, oboe, cello, and clarinet are wrapped around melodies that linger and probe. Comparisons to Debussy would not be out of place, but this isn't pseudo-classical music. These are thoroughly modern atmospheres conceived with taste, skill, and subtelty." (* Critics Choice Award) -- Billboard, USA Program Release Notes There is such a thing as a perfect flaw. It's a single cloud that roams across the sky on a summer day, a moment of pain that deepens and strengthens a relationship, a mistake that leads an artist or a scientist to explore a whole new area of possibility. Tim Story understands this phenomenon. In fact, he has developed a technique for making it happen at will to fuel his aesthetic strategy as a composer and instrumentalist. On his cunningly titled latest release, odd and angular melodies run rampant with a grace that turns the unexpected into the most sublime of moments. The 11 short pieces on his latest venture come with evocative titles like "Liquid Shadow Night," "The Color of Vowels," and "Until She Fades Away." At less than five minutes each, they appear deceptively simple. The nuances reflected in each selection bring to mind the pleasure of staring at a finely cut diamond in a plain gold setting. Just as such a gem catches available light in infinitely intriguing ways, Story's music speaks with an open-ended lyricism that changes and evolves over repeated listenings. His elegant, understated instrumentals satisfy people who crave melody but would like to see it taken beyond the predictability and sentimentality that rule most forms of contemporary music. You can compare his style to ironic miniaturists like early 20th-century French composer Eric Satie. You can mention Story's accomplished union of acoustic grand piano, oboe, clarinet, English horn and cello with subtle, finely-crafted electronic sounds. You can quote journalists who have characterized his approach as "graceful, visceral chamber music for 21st century romantics" (Pulse! 1992). The one thing you can't begin to do is describe the individual pieces themselves, for Story takes listeners to places that words can't follow. His is the language of the soul whispering behind the brain, the intricacies of feeling that stir through the body and yet ultimately leave us speechless. Poets can paint a vague outline of this landscape with their mataphors and suggestions, but only certain kinds of music can take you on a full fledged tour of living emotions: those constantly churning, ambiguous sensations that make you cry at the bittersweet ending of a tragic film yet want to go back and see it again and again. It's this passion for the ironies of life that drives Story's music. The composer himself has described his approach as "a desperate serenity," and he achieves the effect through subtly dissonant melodies that are refined to the point where they flow effortlessly with an integrity and beauty all their own. Of course with Tim Story, it's not light catching the eye that creates the magic. It's the feelings, memories and dreams each individual brings to the music that creates a synthesis of sound and emotion that can never be heard the same way twice. | |
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