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Review: 'Sager,Gareth ft Dave'
'Ghost Ship Trance Lamentations'   

-  Label: 'ORG Music/bandcamp'
-  Genre: 'Ambient' -  Release Date: '15.7.22.'

Our Rating:
Ghost Ship Trance Lamentations is the latest solo album by Gareth Sager who I first saw live playing with Head at The Mean Fiddler way back when, he was also part of Rip Rig And Panic and The Pop Group, Float Up CP and the astonishing Nectarine No 9 among others. This album sounds like none of those previous acts being almost modern classical music. The album was recorded at Abbey Road studios by his Quartet with Dave Wright on Saxophone who was in Essential Logic and Rip Rig and Panic and who I last saw playing with Taurus Trakker along with Debs Spanton On bass and Lisa Watchorn on Cello.

These Lamentations are all called Miniature and the album opens with Miniature 5 a slow piano rumination with sax interjections it's laid back and quite restful.

Miniature 9 adds some Cello to the still rather slow thoughtful piano to help you drift into a deep trance and summon up those ghosts.

Miniature 1 feels like chamber music for a minimalist soundscape. Miniature 4 has a repeating piano motif that the cello plays around before the sax starts to punctuate the sound making it go a little bit be-bop classical.

Miniature 15 is a sad lament almost as if you should sit with tears rolling down your face listening to this very late-night tune.

Miniature 10 has smoky cadences as the cello draws you into a deep well of emotion and the pains of all the recently departed who are sailing away on that Ghost Ship as it evokes similar territory to the Kronos Quartet.

Miniature 2 leads us gently to the conclusion of the a-side with sparse piano and cello and not quite their sax floating through the air.

The b-side opens with Miniature 3 as the cello weaves in and out and around the piano part with carefully plucked bass and a doleful sax that feels like a lament for everyone lost in the last couple of years.

Miniature 13 feels like they have stolen the tune from the slowest of Sade tunes and then taken it down a notch or two this is rather seductive.

Miniature 8 has the slightest of Brechtian elements to the piano as the cello swells around this rather dark lamentation.

Miniature 6 just feels sad and very down at heart and full of loss and pain and all the sorrows of the last couple of years. Miniature 14 is sparse and feels rather sparing like they have reached the end of a long dark trip.

Miniature 20 could almost be a reworking of one of the movements from Glenn Branca's The World Upside Down ballet score but with added sax.

Miniature 19 feels more tremulous and very carefully played with every note in its specific place to get the maximum feeling out of this slow sepulchral lament.

The album closes with Miniature 7 that is somewhere between John Cage and Erik Satie's Etudes to close a rather thought-provoking album on a suitably sparing fashion.

Find out more https://garethsager.bandcamp.com/album/ghost-ship-trance-lamentations check for buy link embed.

https://orgmusic.com/collections/vinyl-lp/products/gsqtgstlbl-lp

  author: simonovitch

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