In stock
LP
Chris ABRAHAMS
“Follower”
On the opening track, Costume, bass piano meanders through a wilderness of de-tuned bells and organ swells; a strange sort of festival. Low frequency sighs evenly punctuate, like a pump or a heartbeat. It’s a procession that takes it time as it wanders the terrain, brought to a close with transcendent distortion. On track 2, New Kind of Border, muscular modal piano surfs among waves of percussion and analogue synthesisers. A buffeting travel.
Follower is Abrahams’ 6th album for Room 40 and showcases his continuing interest in the ambiguous spaces between music and noise; tonality and atonality; rhythm and texture. All four tracks have piano as a key factor: in one instance, high-pitched and atonal; in another, emotive yet distant as if projected on to a screen. Follower presents the listener with a sound world of colourful juxtapositions, rich orchestration and organically open forms.
24,00€
Out of stock
CD
Chris ABRAHAMS
“Appearance”
A note from Lawrence English:
I first met Chris Abrahams sometime in the early part of the 00s.
In 2003, I had the pleasure of spending a very late night glued to his sofa, lights diminished, being introduced to his solo work. That listening experience became known as Thrown, a record that to this day haunts me with its electronic timbral shifts and wheezing positive organ textures.
Since that release, Chris’s work has resided at the very heart of Room40. His music captured across his five solo editions is, I believe, both utterly personal and compellingly diverse. It is music that has been a source of respite, provocation and, most of all, inspiration for me (and many of you I am sure).
Over the years, I have gently encouraged Chris to consider making a solo piano recording to compliment the series of electro-acoustic works he has made for us. Appearance is the manifestation of this encouragement.
Appearance typifies a very particular approach to piano that Chris has cultivated across three decades. He creates a pairing of rippling cascades of tonality with a macro-minimalist compositional form that invites a sense of perpetual release. Notes cycle and gently coalesce to create weaving melodic patterns that accumulate into a slow unfolding of form, across time.
Chris Abrahams’ pieces, in many respects, defy an easy categorisation. He creates music that is unto itself, but profoundly open to the situations in which is it encountered. It’s this porous quality that makes his work so intoxicating. It is a music of moments, cycling in memory and accumulating across time in a way that is without compare. I can’t recommend Appearance to you strongly enough.
Chris Abrahams, Piano
Recorded by Phil Punch at electric avenue studios November 28, 2019
12,00€
In stock
LP
Chris ABRAHAMS
“Fluid to the influence”
Chris Abrahams returns in 2016 with a new edition for Room40, Fluid To The Influence. Building upon the foundation of his previous three editions, Abrahams charts out a divergent course through lilting piano flows, distended organ passages, thunderous electronic eruptions and focused concrète explorations. Fluid To The Influence spans a huge spectrum of sound, each movement calling forward to the next in a flowing motion that demonstrates Abrahams’ commitment to and interest in the album as an artistic form.
Known widely for his piano work with post-everything trio The Necks, Abrahams output as a composer orbits an otherly sonic sphere. Piano is just one element he draws upon, creating a deliberately expansive sound field within which the listener is invited to become lost. He is one of the most significant voices in Australian music, and arguably one of the most restless and original artists creating work today.
20,00€
Out of stock
CD
Chris ABRAHAMS
“Memory night”
Chris Abrahams’ Memory Night is his third edition for Room40 - Play Scar and Thrown preceding this album. Widely recognised as the pianist for Australian liminal improvisation trio The Necks, Chris Abrahams’ solo work etches out an entirely different universe. It’s a place that is entirely his own, unashamedly unique and at times startling - yet always alluring.
On Memory Night, Abrahams’ expands his sonic palette, building on the uneasy frontiers of the highly regarded Play Scar. Never content to revisit past glories, Abrahams’ charts course into unfamiliar sound spaces, where electronics and instruments meet in a constant state of tension and release. Nothing is quite what it appears upon first listen and as a result Memory Night demands an attentive ear.
Recorded across 2011 and 2012, Memory Night is a haunted series of compositions that provoke and compel. Chris Abrahams has created what can only be described as a profound rendering of contemporary composition - a powerful, yet delicate evocation of sound, where instruments and electronics melt and are reformed.
12,00€
In stock
CD
Chris ABRAHAMS
“Fluid to the influence”
Chris Abrahams returns in 2016 with a new edition for Room40, Fluid To The Influence. Building upon the foundation of his previous three editions, Abrahams charts out a divergent course through lilting piano flows, distended organ passages, thunderous electronic eruptions and focused concréte explorations. Fluid To The Influence spans a huge spectrum of sound, each movement calling forward to the next in a flowing motion that demonstrates Abrahams’ commitment to and interest in the album as an artistic form.
Known widely for his piano work with post-everything trio The Necks, Abrahams output as a composer orbits an otherly sonic sphere. Piano is just one element he draws upon, creating a deliberately expansive sound field within which the listener is invited to become lost. He is one of the most significant voices in Australian music, and arguably one of the most restless and original artists creating work today.
13,00€