Blutt

Album review

Always the classical music instrument voted most likely to succeed in other genres, the cello, with its range of expressive textures and timbres, is quietly being taken to new heights of experimentation by Patrick Belaga. The prismatic effects Belaga is clearly aiming for here begin with the title of this collection of original solo pieces, an old German word which depending on its spelling can translate to both "bare" and "blood" The juxtaposition of the two terms implies a deeper, more elemental connection, something drawn out of Belaga's heart or guts. Yet his abiding interest is a deep dive into electronics to manipulate the cello's sonic possibilities through cool-to-the-ears, space-filled intellectual, intersectional inquiries into audibly imaginative odysseys. With a sound often radically changed through effects and delays, the cello is both a solo instrument and accompanist, its usual acoustic resonances transformed and surrounded as in the opener "Lilt," by the melancholy violin of Kai Kight, simulated panpipes, a flash of percussion and a twanging Jew's harp. Inspired by a visit to Gallipoli, Turkey, and "long gone civilizations," these short tone poems—again with the cello sounding like anything but—are intended to be a "stunning soundtrack to the strangeness of sleeping, and the transience of time." Semantic excess aside, these brief pieces—the shortest, "Momentum," is less than a minute long—do capture a certain Eastern European/Middle Eastern quarter tone flavor and hint at the mysticism Belaga clearly intended. Produced by Riley Watts, Blutt is a swirling soundscape, diaphanous yet reverberant. Opening with echoed chords, "Rust," builds layers of processed cello voicings overlaid with burbling, rhythmic electronics to achieve the sensation of floating on a persistent breeze. Vocalist Jazmin Romero adds wordless vocals, a new flavor, to "Grey Eye." A "field recording" of running water around which Belaga and Kight improvise is the central sound of "Unsoft." Blutt's closer and longest track by far, "Slowly," begins with woodwind-like sounds from the cello morphing into long, quavering tones. Belaga loops and stretches them, raising and lowering the volume, at times almost aping a siren's pulsing as the cello ripples spread before trailing off into two alternated notes. It's the album's highlight and a significant step forward in modern cello music. © Robert Baird/Qobuz