Clarinet & Piano: Selected Works, Vol. 2

Album review

Group Listening is a project by experimental and jazz pianist Paul Jones, and clarinettist Stephen Black. After their first meeting with Clarinet & Piano: Selected Works Vol.1 they produced their interpretations of ambient heavyweights and real ‘underground’ favourites, such as Brian Eno, Roedelius and Arthur Russel. Now they are back with something similar, yet entirely different on Clarinet & Piano: Selected Works Vol.2.

This second selection can be only described as ‘home’. Now ‘home’ may seem like an odd choice of word to describe music, but you have to listen to the album to believe it. Their reimaginings of left-of-canon tracks are so inviting that they could be the soundtrack to a Beatrix Potter novel. Think frosted windows, the rolling hills, or that favourite charity-shop mug on a winter's day. 

One tries to be quite speedy with their reviews, however this review took particularly long. Precisely 6 albums and 1 documentary long. Listening to this album alone I knew I had found a gem, however researching this album uncovered but ten more. As with their previous album, Group Listening used pre-existing works to influence their musical journey, however this time around they chose to reference everything and everyone from pioneers of the 80’s New Age scene, to krautrock via underground Saharan tape music. 

Some highlights from Clarinet & Piano: Selected Works Vol.2 include the opening track, Sunset Village, a rendition of the ambient pioneer Glenn Copeland’s track of the same name. Sunset Village sets up for a journey of wide-eyed wonder… bright, playful and musing as we stride with ease into our adventure. Y Cwsg is by Welsh artist Malcolm Neon, an originally quite alien electronic track which is transformed into a smooth groove lead by Black’s full-bodied clarinet line, accompanied nicely by a minimalist lo-fi drum beat that keeps that slight ethereal element that the original had. Take Care, originally by 70s rock band Big Star and revived by Yo La Tengo, receives wonderful treatment by Black and Jones to create the image of dimly lit houses on a dark evening… a track that is like taking a peek into the window of a warm home. Five Hundred Miles is from, you guessed it, an even more obscure place, from the archives of Mamman Sani, an electronic artist from Niger active predominantly in the 80s… definitely not the Proclaimers song you were expecting. 

This whole album is a masterclass in transforming music and evoking imagery for the audience. Group Listening have created something beautiful and understated, away from the flashy ‘ideals’ of what classical music should sound like. New Age, ambient, neo-classical, however you want to coin this music, it is first and foremost an excursion… into the countryside, into the minds of two brilliant musicians and into the unique, and often obscure, lexicon of music from which the group conjures their wholesome escape, even if it is for only ten tracks... © Jessica Porter-Langson