Monday, December 26, 2011

10.) Plays Thelma - Benoît Honoré Pioulard (Top 20 Albums of 2011)












Plays Thelma
Benoît Honoré Pioulard
Desire Path Records.


Returning to normalcy after my wedding had the vague air of coming back into consciousness after a severe panic attack; in the aftermath of all of the activity and sensory overload, one’s overtaken by a relief that elicits a short-lived serenity. Getting back to a regular routine after all of the wedding planning put me in a peaceful frame of mind that desired only restrained music.

With Plays Thelma, so began my post-classical autumn. Its MP3s were waiting when we pulled in from the airport and became my go-to record the following morning, basking in the morphing character of ‘Malick’ and ‘Calder’ as I passed changing foliage. Pioulard designed this mini-album as an imaginary place – “a lake within a haze” – and these compositions, often string-laden or tempered by found-sounds, succeed in mapping out a quaint territory for the mind to wander over and over. In the process, these songs thread together my favourite ambient piece of 2011 but, what’s more: Thelma became my sanctuary.

1 comment:

You Are My Symphonic said...

I remember reading about this in the Autumn feature. It has a superb grainy quality. Bookmarked.