Warwick Blair: Accordion

Warwick Blair

Given musician-composer Warwick Blair's background - he has worked here and overseas with orchestras and electronic artists, with one of Madonna and Bjork's producers, played in pop-rock outfits in London, and lectured in contemporary music - an album of innovative sounds is no surprise.

What catches you off-guard with Accordion, however, is the quasi-ambient nature of the integrated, five-part work which features an enormous artillery of instruments from guitar, trumpet and harp, to piano, percussion, voices and electronics. Given that firepower it would be reasonable to expect something if not Wagnerian in scope, then at least with the punch of a Phil Spector production.

Yet Blair's engrossingly hypnotic pieces - each around 10 minutes, which is long enough to pull you in but not outstay its welcome - are subtle soundscapes which might have come from a documentary about space, deserts or the tides. They recall the ambient explorations of Brian Eno.

With evocative, oceanic swells of electronics or instruments which then drift back to the merest trickle of sounds, this is music cinematic in conception but also so inviting of reflection as to be highly personal.

In places - the final section of Trumpet for example - there is a tonal quality which suggests North African music, in others - the beats which drive the most up-tempo sections, Yes and Your My - hints of vigorous dance floor pop. The final track is beamed in from another cosmos.

Accordion in places conforms to Eno's description of ambient music being as ignorable as it is enjoyable, but it rewards close attention to the details of melody and sonic texture which bind the whole together.

* Accordion by Warwick Blair (Manu/Ode, CDManu5011)