It’s tough enough to make it in the music world, more so if you’re composing instrumental music. Despite perhaps a lack of populist appeal, Adrian Lim-Klumpes has continued to make a name for himself as an incredible rising Australian pianist.
His latest offering, an album called Yield, proves yet again his proclivity as an artist. Further driving the stake home is his own perspective on the record, which he was kind enough to share with us. Take it away, Adrian.
Texture, tone and temporal swing: enrich yourself with the complex narratives of Adrian Lim-Klumpes and his aural feast Yield.
Watch
Begin an emotional, at times raw, journey into a creative outpouring of improvised piano music. In Watch we find a simple improvisation on a theme coloured with sampling and effects, a gentle melody embedded in a shimmering backdrop.
The piano is like a singing voice that wanders from beautiful nostalgia to lament, set against a chorus of harmonic whispers.
Follow
Follow is a fugue, a two-part oblique motion theme that ‘follows’ itself in various registers, rhythms and tonalities. An initially simple motif gains texture and depth as it overlaps and crescendos.
Drawn into the sense of urgency created, it is as if we blindly follow a disappearing dream through a maze of harmonies, regardless of the end point.
Caution
With two improvised layers Caution explores the darkness and power of the lower registers of the piano. We hear rumbling and thundering and become aware of the depth of sound created as treated high notes, like glass bells, echo in a cavernous space.
Chase
Chase is an improvisation with and against a reversing delay effect that is then layered upon itself, as if chasing its tail. This circling becomes a lulling rhythm that sways to and fro. The melody, never quite resolving, floats as though suspended in the viscous hum of electroacoustic buzz and glitch.
Wait
The mood of the album changes with Wait from a need to create, to an examination of the space that surrounds each musical decision. Punctuated by silences and occasional electroacoustic reverberations, the piano slowly breathes its chords, inviting the listener to a meditation on waiting, pausing expectations and discovering stillness as a state of action.
Rush
Offering respite from introspection, Rush offers chords that rain down, drenching the listener in polyphony and rhythm. A wash of colour is created with three repeats of the original theme only one second apart, realising an intense stretto. The enveloping sonorities are pulled from a variety of microphones and placements.
Process
Uncovering yet more harmonic colour, Process uses overlapping fifths moving in a composed pattern to create an ebb and flow, a moving between a rising sense of hope and its opposing uncertainty.
The rhythm slows and on a deserted beach, we collect our thoughts deciding whether to look back or to continue forwards.
Control
In Control we meet the underbelly of contemplation; anticipation. A bass tone row is chased by a meta-melody hindered by pegs muting piano strings. The dark tones of the bass intimate that perhaps a loss of control is imminent.
The exquisite tones of the prepared piano showcase the dissonant harmonies, creating a piece of sublime apprehension.
Move
Cascading chords create a swell of colour that propels the sweeping melodic lines of Move. The listener is invited to dive into the waves of sound and the lush texture of layered harmonies. Like dancers tumbling and weaving across the sand the intertwined strains shift across a backdrop of Rhythmic pulses only to have their footprints erased by a smear of effects.
Remain
An initial performance of a simple melody remains still while the theme is repeated in the dominant key. Not only does this tracker solve the tension and movement of the preceding track, it also ends the journey of the album. Put the whole album on repeat and this last track seamlessly guides you on to the first.
Adrian Lim-Klumpes launches his new album at Foundry 616, Ultimo this Wednesday November 29. From 8:30pm enjoy a specially curated piano night with Mike Nock and Alister Spence.
Grab all the details here.
