Paula Matthusen, ‘Pieces for People’
By combining an instrument or two with ingenious electronic processing, composer Paula Matthusen creates incantatory sonic landscapes that are varied, mysterious and often ravishingly beautiful.
There are eight pieces on this wonderful new release, and what’s striking about them is how uniquely each one draws on its particular sonic toolbox while still maintaining a distinctive personal style.
In each, the electronics contribute just enough highlighting — a punchy rhythmic reworking here, an extended chordal drone there — to complement the acoustic instruments without drowning them in high-tech fussiness.
“Of Architecture and Accumulation,” a slow, expansive study for organist Wil Smith, acts as a lengthy counterweight to the short-breathed scale of some of the other pieces; the brief final “In Absentia” can almost break your heart. —