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Product Description
Review
The grandiloquently named project of a pair of blue riband mood-casters, A Winged Victory for the Sullen combines the talents of Italophile Californian pianist Dustin O'Halloran and Stars of the Lid's ambient drone-meister Adam Wiltzie, another American who these days calls Europe (Belgium, in his case) home. True to their chosen moniker, the music that this cosmopolitan duo fashion regularly takes wing and it's certainly a victory for subtlety, sensitivity and judiciousness over broad, flashy musical brushstrokes. Sullen, mercifully, it is not.
O'Halloran and Wiltzie (there's a buddy cop show waiting to happen, surely?) were drawn together in Bologna, Italy, at one of the final shows by the late Mark Linkous' much-revered Sparklehorse, with whom Wiltzie was touring (indeed, the two-part Requiem for the Static King, which lies at the heart of this seven-essay album, is dedicated to Linkous). Both enamoured of piano-based atmosphere and understated chamber orchestration (not to mention fine continental cuisine, apparently), the duo bonded in a number of European studio locations, fleshing out their crepuscular electronic keyboard drones and elegantly restrained piano motifs with lavish strings from the ubiquitous Peter Broderick and Icelandic cellist Hildur Gu�nad�ttir.
The results are, almost inevitably, meditative and cinematic, but also, more unusually for music of this so-called 'post-classical' stripe, rich in melody and genuinely haunting, numinous atmosphere. Thus, tremulous, pensive opener We Played Some Open Chords, while doing exactly what it says on the proverbial tin, sounds like a particularly brooding Harold Budd �tude sporadically weighted with Gavin Bryars-like orchestral gravitas, the latter tonalities warding off the chocolate boxy prettiness to which O'Halloran's solo works are occasionally prone.
The aforementioned, two-part Requiem for the Static King follows, its melancholy, Stars of the Lid-like drift/drone-scaping proffering a rapturous, John Dowland-meets-Brian Eno, Renaissance-ambient tone bath in which it is impossible not to become totally immersed. The ensuing Minuet for a Cheap Piano Number Two blends further geodesic drones with stately piano figures and updrafts of swooning, soaring cello - again recalling Gavin Bryars (particularly his masterful The Sinking of the Titanic), while the marvellously titled Steep Hills of Vicodin Tears, the highlight here, builds from muted electronic static to a gorgeous, near symphonic climax.
--David Sheppard
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CD Description
A Winged Victory For The Sullen is the first installment of the new collaboration between Stars Of The Lid member Adam Wiltzie and L.A. composer Dustin O Halloran. The duo agreed to leave the comfort zone of their home studios and develop the recordings with the help of large acoustic spaces, hunting down a selection of 9ft grand pianos that had the ability to deliver extreme sonic low end. Other traditional instrumentation was used including string quartet, French horn, and bassoon, but always juxtaposed is the sound of drifting guitar washed melodies. The recordings began with one late night session in the famed Grunewald Church in Berlin on a 1950s imperial Bösendorfer piano and strings were added in the historic East Berlin DDR radio studios along the River Spree. One last session on a handmade Fazioli piano in a private studio on the Northern cusp of Italy, before the final mixes took place in a 17th century villa near Ferrara with the assistance of Francesco Donadello. All songs were then processed completely analogue straight to magnetic tape. Their secret to harvesting new melodic structures from the thin air of existence was for the duo to push themselves to dangerous territory, realising that clear thinking at the wrong moment could stifle the compositions. The final result is seven landscapes of harmonic ingemination. In Requiem For The Static King Part One created in memory of the untimely passing of Mark Linkous they have taken the age-old idea of a string quartet and then shot it out of a cannon to reveal exquisite new levels of sonic bliss. Of the 13 minute track Symphony Pathétique , Wiltzie says after almost 20 years of struggling to create interesting ambient drone music, I feel like I have finally figured out what I am doing . Notable guest musicians include Icelandic cellist Hildur Gudnadottir, as well as Erased Tapes label comrade Peter Broderick on violin. A Winged Victory For The Sullen is not a side project it is the future of the late night record you have always dreamed of.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Winged Victory for the Sullen - A Winged Victory for the Sullen. 9/10 (86%),
By
This review is from: A Winged Victory for the Sullen (Audio CD)
A pinch more variety for a year of music that's over-flowing with superlative releases from artists of every genre, hybrid and movement - a winged victory for the sullen are an instrumental duo providing compositions of monumentally beautiful, atmospheric and minimalistic(ish) neo-classical.I'd describe this as Interior film-music. It aches with the same longing as Thomas Newman's soundtrack for the film `American Beauty', yet carries all the subjectivity to make this a malleable and deeply emotional journey for its audience, with absorbing strings and poignant piano shaping moods of melancholy and hope alike. Using the word `Victory'; implying positivity, change and perseverance and the word `Sullen'; implying melancholy, depression and angst, the titled of this album and project couldn't be more apt. A piano of this quality and played this well can tell such a tale - with sad minor melodies occasionally finding jazzy yet hopeful resolutions, and the strings often a warming undercurrent, also provide thick chords which, although not `triumphant' sounding (I think `victory' and `triumph' and I think of fanfare) certainly help communicate moments of life affirming equilibrium in the sullen dirge. For someone with my tastes and musical inclinations, those being more towards aggressive and raucous styles, this sort of music is extremely therapeutic and can accompany me while I work, travel, or just sit back and relax, wholly calm... it can also detoxify my ears of the brutality I so often subject them to. To some people, who would no doubt be a more suitable audience for this kind of music than myself, I'm certain this would be found to be quite heavy going and they may struggle to find nothing but pleasure, as I do, from the listening experience. This is no doubt subject to the sparse timbre and choice textures which may feel somewhat 'empty' and thus stark and sorrowful to some. Speaking of timbre and textures, this feels like the metaphorical `yang' if `Deaf Center' (another compositional duo whose release `Owl Splinters' I have also reviewed) was the musical `yin', a band with a similar compositional approach, yet far more negativity is implied on a whole, with the latter being a far darker experience. As far as I know this is `A Winged Victory's...' maiden voyage. I sincerely hope there's more to come...
4.0 out of 5 stars
Beautiful Sounds,
By Nellie (SW UK) - See all my reviews
This review is from: A Winged Victory for the Sullen (Audio CD)
The comments from the other reviewers are pretty close to the mark, in my opinion. I've enjoyed Stars of the Lid, for example, for years now and A Winged Victory ... do bear a passing similarity, hardly suprising given the involvement of Adam Wiltzie in the project. That said, Winged have their own sound, it's beautiful and haunting and I suspect what seems to be a superficial simplicity actually hides a lorry-load of skill and effort to achieve.Mood really is important here, or rather your frame of mind plus your ambient circumstances. The combination will decide whether this music gets drowned out by a real-world hubbub or succeeds in magically washing you away. Get your frame right and this is an outstanding album. Well done.
4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Beautiful,
By
This review is from: A Winged Victory for the Sullen (Audio CD)
Already a fan of Stars of the Lid and had been looking forward to this. Particularly like the track "Symphony Pathetique", lovely sad piano and haunting strings, recommend. Not one to get the party jumping, but thoughtful and emotional, if you are in the mood. Wind down music of a high calibre. I'd recommend Hammock's "Lonely, Some Quietly Wander in the Hall of Stars", tremendous track.
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