Lightening Show is marked by audacious, disorienting
arrangements that stir and entrance the listener with
their shamanistic ambience. Essentially a solo effort,
this work enables Ben Vida, who is also a member of
Town And Country, to indulge in more eclectic, personal
whims. In this vein, Beautiful Spring is underpinned
by harmonium drones, the shadows of a murky bass, and
the placid repetition of rising piano arpeggios, conveying
a strong World Music dimension. It is an element that
bleeds into numerous other works, such as Field
On Water, and the more raucous Seeds,
which introduce a bevy of other clunky instruments,
from ringing mandolins, to scraggy walls of electric
viola.
Thankfully, pieces are ordered precisely enough to save
this album from those who might be tempted to cry, ¨kitsch!¨
The title track, for instance, starts off with reverberating
walls of sound pierced by twittering percussion, only
to halfway through suddenly perform an act of deconstruction
on itself, removing all but the key elements, and then
carrying the track on for a few minutes with this elegant,
fractal structure. These moments are interspersed with
more confrontational outbursts, such as those found
on First Path Through, which is an exercise
in upper register electronics - the piece becomes more
intense and ecstatic as the timbres gradually ascend
higher and higher as though a monk slowly reaching a
state of enlightenment.
This spell is somewhat broken by Greet The Morning,
which sees this album come back down to earth from its
hallucinogenic state. Rather than lose itself in a volatile
swirl of flute and mountains of escalating sound, the
song treads through more conventional folk-rock territories,
linked back to the other works only by the slight spray
of guitar feedback. This atmosphere takes root with
the final two songs, which similarly display gentle
guitar strumming, patterned with tinkling bells, steely
drones, and the odd meditative whisper spilling out
over the proceedings. It is an ending that does not
quite take in and sum up all of that which came before,
but it does reaffirm Vida's ability to work in a variety
of settings, often to a pleasing result.
Max Schaefer
3.2/5 |
