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Review: 'KENT, JULIA'
'Green And Grey'   

-  Label: 'Tin Angel Records'
-  Genre: 'Ambient' -  Release Date: '16th May 2011'

Our Rating:
By her own admission, it is only when she is at home in New York that Julia Kent finds the space and tranquillity to work on her own projects.

The skills of this highly accomplished Canadian-born cellist are, not surprisingly in great demand. She is best known for a ten year stint as one of the founder members of the 'cello-rock' ensemble Rasputina and as one of Antony's Johnsons.

As a result of her busy touring schedule and extensive work with other artists, finding the opportunity for solo recording does not come easily.

Given the time it takes to get a record out, Delay was an appropriate title for her debut solo album in 2007.

This was an album conceived on the road, drawing on the emotions and frustrations of the modern travel experience. Each of the tracks was named after airports around the world and incorporated 'found sounds' recorded in situ.

The title could also be taken as a reference to the delay pedal, a vital tool that enables her to expand and give extra depth to her music.

Despite its origins in the stasis of downtime, the music itself was anything but stagnant. The pulse of its metronomic rhythms gave the record a real sense of momentum.

Green And Grey continues in a similar vein although it is inspired by a different set of dislocations and intersections; those that occur between the natural and the human-created world.

The eleven tracks use a subtle backdrop of field recordings of insect and weather sounds to give a natural compass to the music.

The inner sleeve includes a thank you to the cicadas of Allaire, a reference perhaps connected to the track named after Tithonos who according to Greek mythology, turned into a cicada and was blessed, or perhaps cursed, with immortality.

There is a slow graceful quality to the tracks that merge seamlessly into one another. A Spire with its slightly more urgent quality would not be out of place on a Hitchcock soundtrack but mostly the movement consists more of a natural flow or a gradual descent, as with the gentle cascading notes to Ailanthus.

The sound of the cello always sounds melancholy, but in Julia Kent's skilled hands it is neither a dry nor a moribund instrument. Her music is cool and self-contained but never cold or distant.

In short, the album is more green than grey and offers a calming antidote for restless souls everywhere.

Julia Kent's Website
  author: Martin Raybould

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KENT, JULIA - Green And Grey
KENT, JULIA - Green And Grey