Label: Touch

美しい大型DVDパッケージ仕様!!アルヴォ・ペルト、テリー・ライリー、Can、アリス・コルトレーンといった多岐に渡るインスピレーションを取り入れ、更には電子音楽の表現すらも純粋なアコースティック楽器だけで再構築したという、英国の演奏家であるジェム・ファイナー(ハーディ・ガーディ)と、ジョン・マサイアス(ヴァイオリン)によるデュオ録音[Almost Starlight]。自国デヴォン州の田園地帯の奥深くにある中世の教会で録音された12のテイクが収録されており、英Touchとしては近年珍しいフォルクローレからモダン・クラシックまでを繋ぐ異色の一枚。







Almost Starlight is the extraordinary new album by Jem Finer (hurdy-gurdy) and John Matthias (violin). Produced by Jay Auborn and recorded in a medieval church, deep in the Devon countryside, in the Summer of 2025, the music is suffused with light, heat and the natural acoustics of the space.

The album defies categorisation; forced to pigeonhole it the nearest approximation would be ‘modern-classical’ but this ignores its myriad influences and explorations which encompass inspiration from Arvo Pärt through Terry Riley to Can via Delius, Alice Coltrane and a subtle reimagining of electronic music played purely with acoustic instruments, bending and shaping their possibilities in surprising and unexpected directions.

Jay Auborn plays cello on a number of the compositions and his production opens up and expands the music through a skilled and imaginative use of space, paying homage to the atmosphere of the church; ‘the sound evolved… chasing the imagined acoustics of that church in my mind; a place for worshipping light with sound.’