Music for Wood and Strings

Just right when you want someting to simply wash over uou.

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Bryce Dessner, guitarist with The National, strikes out in a very different directionwith his composition 'Music For Wood and Strings', performed on "chordsticks"(a sort-of customised dulcimer/guitar hybrid) by Brooklyn quartet So Percussion.The piece is built of nine sections, wherein the musicians strum, stroke, hammerand pluck the sounds into being. Sometimes things are built around a sustaineddrone and simple rhythmic motif, as in 'Section 1', creating a gentle meditativeambience and in others, 'Section 5' for example, become substantially more friskyand dancelike. The complex interplay between the instruments creates a wonderfullydense web of sound not unlike those generated by Laraaji (Edward Larry Gordon)with his hammered dulcimer and zither on the still-beautiful collaboration with BrianEno : 'Ambient 3 : Day Of Radiance' (1980). Mr Dessner's music, however, hasa little less hippie in its heart and owes more, perhaps, to the wholesome rhythms oftraditional American folk dance than to the esoteric inward-gazing eye of The East.The pattering beats and soft push/pull chords of 'Section 7' are especially magical.A delightful invention and one which becomes more loveable with repeated encounters.Recommended.