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Indesterren (77'20") may be an unconscious evolution into space. Tom Eaton's album of eight tracks is for both the questing and resting mind - somehow traveling naturally to its many destinations through different degrees of starlight. With Indesterren, Eaton has taken a style everyone knows and brought out enough drama and meanings in it to make it newly compelling. While grand piano is central to each of the compositions, Eaton fills them out and fattens them up with interesting combinations of horn, synthesizer, accordion, bass, electric guitar and percussion - in such imaginative ways so as to leave the listener flooded with the brilliant light of his imagination. The piano notes sound out slow and strong into pristine reverberation - their engaging melody cinematic in the storytelling. As contrasting delicacy and breadth materialize through quiet synth pads and effects, we find throughout Indesterren a sense of ease and elegance, but amazing control. From the dark blurred atmospherics of a brooding never-never land, to cold constellations of stars set against the velvet black of the night sky, we ride along with the motions of the planets, never waiting for the music's poetry to make itself known. Although subdued in tone, and based on light and dark values, Indesterren is self-conscious and designed - a fully realized irresistible wonderland. Here, Eaton brings such great authority that it would seem that his listeners would follow him anywhere - into meditations on beauty, or on our own meaning.
- Chuck van Zyl/STAR'S END 4 May 2017 |
