la montagne change le paysage contains eight relatively short pieces, presumably improvisations, from Davies (pedal harp) and Gerard (acoustic guitar). One of the unique aspects of this thoughtful, contemplative yet subtly agitated recording is that both musicians exclusively employ sustained, bowed attacks. The music never quite gets to anything explicitly thematic, more nuzzling up against the hint of a theme before digressing, unspooling. Given the title of the album, one thinks of a small patch of landscape — perhaps some grass or a few feet of gravel, something that could be almost but not quite reproduced an infinite number of times, yet each area is different. The tones tend toward the slightly sour when in the middle to high range, richer, even lush when venturing low, sending tendrils outward, freely roaming but cognizant of each other.
Sometimes, as in the fourth track (all untitled), there's a vague mournful feeling, a sense of quiet isolation, almost a monastic air, one of going through daily routines that are necessary but difficult. Always patient but always pushing gently forward, seeing what's beyond the next clump of brush or hillside. Not without some small anxiety, which provides needed tension, but hardly angst-filled. It's an unusual recording in its concentrated and relative narrowness of path but, as with other such considered sessions, the listener understands that there's no narrowness at all but, rather, an enormity of subject.
An excellent venture all around, particularly if you've been following Davies' extraordinary course these last 30 or so years.
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