With their collaborative cello cycle Stories for Ocean Shells, Australian composer Kate Moore and American cellist Ashley Bathgate weave an utterly mesmerising tapestry of sounds. This set of six works written primarily for the cello (subtly augmented by tape layers, vocals, pedal steel guitar and vibraphone) gradually unfolds in its complexity and lends the listener a glimpse of a path that is evidently intensely personal. A journey such as this often requires the trust of a long-term working relationship, and indeed, Moore and Bathgate have been working together for a number of years. I previously enjoyed Moore's Cello Concerto, written for Bathgate and seen in concert in the Netherlands, and I was curious to see what further fruits their collaboration had produced.
In the hands of Bathgate, the cello truly sings – one can almost glean the words it seems to be uttering in the opening track, Whoever you are come forth. The sound she produces is powerful and sonorous, yet each phrase retains a sense of vulnerability in its execution: in this way, this naked and plaintive melody deftly avoids falling into the trappings of sentimentality. A slightly weary, worn air is allowed to creep in, and without any long drawn-out farewell the music simply turns around and leaves – just like that, it ends.
After an opening that is arresting in its simplicity, Moore steers the title piece, Stories for Ocean Shells, into the hyper-layered textures that are growing to be something of a trademark: patterns coil around themselves and motifs pile up, the music settling into a series of harmonic states before unceremoniously shifting to the next. This results in delicious consonances that are nevertheless not cheesy, co-existing as they do with grating dissonances that fastidiously hold their place in the whole. When the music is swept into progressions, such as on the third track, Velvet, I realised that the harmony is always taken exactly where I want it to go.
The opening of Velvet feels like stepping into a room in which these particular repeated strains have already been sounding for millennia. Rhythmic cycles are a strong component of Moore's work, and on this release they are exploited within each piece but also on a macro level as they develop over the CD as a whole. She expands and contracts the tempo not by direct acceleration, but by multiplying and layering subdivisions in a very organic way: a musical mitosis. Segments of each complex layer are delivered from all sides, every motif comprised of multitudes.
The tempo is also of vital importance in my favourite track: Doloroso. Static textures of breathy vocals and distorted guitar are passed out one by one, as the vibraphone teasingly hovers around the harmony. They are unapologetic in their slowness; there is a message to be delivered, but at their own pace. As the listener you are gloriously held in place, obliged to lend your attention as the music takes up ownership of its space, seemingly stating ‘you will take your time to receive me’.
Homage to my boots is in itself a small cell cycle – again, cycles within cycles. According to the liner notes, the work describes ‘stepping out into an unknown world where everything is possible’, and indeed it leads us through successive and distinct events, telling a tangible story that paints a rich picture using the barest minimum. A track that shows its rough edges more than the last, Homage, draws out the raw sounds of scraping bows, letting you almost taste the silty wind, and every possibility is coaxed out of each sound introduced, such as the series of almost guttural overtones flowing from a single note. On CD this work sometimes feels too long, but in a live performance the human connection with the performer would change this.
With the last track, a simple solo work entitled Broken Rosary, we find ourselves back at the start of the spiral. Its repetition is resolute and unfolds with a timeless quality. Added textures are external influences: crackling fires and The Shining-esque strings loom in upon the listener, but do not affect the cello's ceaseless steps, and it is only at the very end that Bathgate slows, taking these unrelenting patterns and bringing them to a close that is undeniably human.
Moore's works are gradually yet constantly morphing into new states, so that you shake your head and realise you have arrived somewhere entirely different, without realising how you got there. Rather than a simple movement from A to B, her musical structures feel like a vast framework of gears through which one may shift in multiple dimensions – not so much a straight line, then, as a spiral, and at the pit of the spiral it opens out, and we are yet again standing at the edge, looking out.
