London’s Bigo & Twigetti label kicks off spring with two releases that each combine the talents of multiple composers. Shorts is an appetizer, nine tracks in mine minutes, while Towards the Light is the main course. We’ll be covering one today and the other tomorrow.
How long is your attention span? Shorts honors the template of Minute Papillon and One Minute Older, while taking the concept a step further. Not only are the tracks brief, the release is as well. Belying the concept, great attention was paid to the thought of making each track complete in and of itself, rather than acting as a fragment. Nine composers answered the call, and some even went further, delivering tracks under a minute long, the briefest being Velt‘s forty-two-second “Lure.” A voice intones the title as the piano plays; the track is indeed a lure, and the listener is the fish.
The title of lead-off track “Blink of an Eye” seems appropriate, as one begins to ask, “What else can happen in a minute?” According to Tavares, “it only takes a minute to fall in love,” and a life can also change in the blink of an eye, for better or for worse. Hior Chronik‘s “The Cloud I’m Under” is a standout, due to the increased instrumentation of chimes and other electronics; the piece sounds like a lullaby for the world’s best child, who needs only 56 seconds to fall asleep. Wilson Trouvé‘s “Growth” is perfectly timed for spring, blossoming in the morning dew. Leah Kardos contributes a sense of surprise to “Rattle Cage,” with exclamations, onomatopoeia and intriguing percussion; in this case, we’d love to hear more of the same, which is both a compliment and a complaint.
The entire set passes like a snow flurry or sun showers, finished before one knows it is over. The irony of a title such as “Goodbye, My Love” is that it is also hello. And therein lies the rub. When the EP ends, we realize that we may be able to focus longer than we first estimated. Fortunately, Bigo & Twigetti has over a hundred other releases, from the brief to album-length, to satisfy any attention span. (Richard Allen)