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Mira Calix - Eyes Against The Sun (Warp)
UK release date: 15 January 2007
4 stars
Mira Calix - Eyes Against The Sun

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track listing

1. Because To Why
2. Stockholm Syndrome
3. Cereus Night
4. Eeilo
5. Protean
6. Way You Are When
7. Tillsammans
8. Umbra/Penumbra
9. Belonging
10. One Line Behind
11. Eyes Set Against The Sun

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Mira Calix is a fascinating musical personality. It's the name by which South African-born Chantal Passamonte is known, though this is only half the story, as her country Suffolk residence exerts a strong influence on her style.

This comes from a willingness to get out of the studio. On the one hand are small melodies and motifs of a subtle beauty, orchestrated with a skill that has led to work with the London Sinfonietta. But for this album Passamonte spent as much time in her "other" studio - the great outdoors - using field recordings to give her music a pastoral clothing.

These musical landscapes are in a sense folk music, and coupled with Passamonte's work in Aldeburgh, bring irresistible parallels with Benjamin Britten. One of Britten's legacies is the Aldeburgh Festival, whose parent company has worked closely with Mira Calix in semi-classical pieces.

The classical sensibilities come through on Eyes Set Against The Sun, the three spaces between the album's title words at the request of the composer. At first glance this smacks of pretension, but having read the composer's thoughts is anything but, emphasising the importance of silence in her music and words.

All of which might lead you to think that the album requires a lot of effort on the part of the listener to make any sense, but happily it operates on two levels. Close listening is rewarded with the intricacy of scoring - careful placing of electronic and analogue sounds, especially good on headphones or widescreen.

It reveals parts of the eleven minute centerpiece Way You Are When to be like a giant machine lumbering into action, immediately flanked by disembodied children's choir and pizzicato strings that bring parallels to Britten once again.

Listening from a distance often brings a warm ambience, with the soundscapes setting the electronica against natural sounds from the forest, as in Protean, or in Belonging, which sounds like objects blowing softly in the wind, rather like a Cage piece for prepared piano.

This doesn't mean the music of Mira Calix is derivative - far from it. And in the words of Passamonte, Eyes Set has a yellow coloration. It's in indication of the warmth she brings to her music on this album, whose natural music proves most rewarding, regardless of the effort the listener wants to put in.


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