If you’re a regular reader here, you’d know by now what I search for the most in new music is something that I’ve never heard before. BJ Cole and Secondson’s new pedal steel guitar and Cristal Baschet duo record, There is Wonder Here, is exactly that.
Available 9/18 from Centripetal Force on CD, vinyl and digital (and on cassette through Geology Records), this album is a dreamy and otherworldly set of soundscapes and experimental compositions that break through the boundaries of ambient Americana music into something completely new and original.
So what makes this album so particularly unique? Well, for starters, BJ Cole is one of the most groundbreaking and influential pedal steel players ever, known for mastering and expanding the horizons of his instrument through collaborations with the likes of The Orb, Björk, John Cale and Brian Eno (plus famously appearing on Elton John’s “Tiny Dancer,”). Yet it’s his distinctive approach to the instrument combined with the utterly incomparable sound of the Cristal Baschet that makes this LP stand apart from anything else you might find in the record shop today.
A Cristal Baschet is sort of like a glass harmonica, with gentle, vocal-like tones and great oscillating Cathedral pipe organ-like resonances that are produced by rubbing chromatically tuned glass rods with wet fingertips. Secondson has described the rare instrument as “an acoustic synthesizer,” and its ghostly drones and shimmering tones blend sympathetically with the similarly sweeping, ethereal sounds of the pedal steel. When played together, the effect is expansive, transfixing and downright moving.
While you might expect music from this particular combination of instruments to be purely minimal and amorphous, you’d be surprised to find that these tracks are actual songs with melodies and tight structures. Check out “A Place You Could Never Leave,” the album’s first single, for example:
With the way this track sways, dances and ebbs and flows, it’s almost lyrical. This particular song, and several others on this record, even has the vibe of a grand orchestral piecee that echoes the work of some of the more progressive modernist American classical composers of the 20th century.
Fans of North Americans, Keith Jarrett’s Hymns/Spheres and Mark Korven’s soundtrack to Robert Eggers’ The Lighthouse will surely appreciate the beauty and genius of this duo record. Click here to preorder your copy today.
-KH
