Improvisations on the Pipe Organs of Europe (UE 257) is a contemplative and exuberant romp across the continent, exploring and enjoying some of the world's finest instruments, and creating new music in the process. From Prague to Paris, Budapest to Berlin, The Hague to Genoa, Blake Hargreaves interacts with the incredible richness and variety of instruments and acoustics available, to produce music that is firmly rooted in tradition, has the immediacy of improvisation, and distills the 20th century to merely a layer in a centuries-old cake. Features tracks recorded on the world-renowed 1648/1753 Bätz organ in The Hague, and the 1816 Serassi organ in Genoa.
released June 5, 2020
Released on Ultra Eczema November 22, 2019
performed by: Blake Hargreaves
mastering and sequencing: Kris Delacourt
layout: Jef Cuypers
produced by Dennis Tyfus and Blake Hargreaves
available on LP at:
www.ultraeczema.com/releases/index.html
Bookmat, Manchester UK:
Canada’s Blake Hargreaves summons the almighty power of Europe’s auld pipe organs in his spellbinding suite of improvisations recorded in churches in Genova, Höchst, Den Haag, Paris, Berlin, Prague, Budapest and Frankfurt. Make no mistake though, this is no hard academic exercise, this one’s on a pop tip, think about when Kara-Lis Coverdale talked about re-arranging hymns with a bit of Drake, or as the label put it "...as sweet as Schubert!”
Among the most enchanting recordings of organ music we’ve heard among a recent groundswell of pipe organ works by everyone from Kara-Lis Coverdale, Maria W. Horn and Kali Malone to Áine O’Dwyer and Stefan Fraunberger; ‘Improvisations On The Pipe Organs Of Europe’ sees Hargreaves play up to the unwieldy, ancient instrument’s classical forms while also leaning towards its more experimental, contemporary, processed examples. The results in effect give voice to the pipe organs as they have been used for hundreds of years, to manipulate congregations and install the fear of god, or some “other” presence (essentially infrasound), and their appeal is fittingly timeless and haunting.
The minuet at Justinuskirche, Höchste is a particular highlight with its playful yet stately sense of pomp primed for a vintage horror flick, while Berceuse at Saint-Nicolas-du-Chardonnet, Paris makes more meditative use of the pipe organ’s capacity for droning low end, as does the wonderfully pensile, floating performance documented in Serenade at Saint-Louie-en-l’île, Paris, whereas Nocturne at Basilica sv Petra a Pavla Praha focuses on tremulous higher registers with incisively synaesthetic and weightless effect, and Meditation at KunstKulturKirche Allerheiligen, Frankfurt am Main puts its organ thru a deeply sombre and funereal procession.
Ultimately, the recordings are just very easy to listen to and could hardly sound more apt for the time of year when we wanna zone out.
Low Company, London UK:
Grand, eerie pipe organ theatrics and a contemporary Folkways triumph from BLAKE HARGREAVES as he travels the continent, sculpting a VERY convincing LP / travelogue in the name of jesus!
Don’t be mislead by the “improvisations” part - whilst these pieces all feel impulsive and unpredictable, they all still feel very much like SONGS, or more accurately - Mr. Hargreaves can seemingly play the organ rather proficiently and has not gone round Europe on some franticly noodling gap year, as one may have feared.
On par excellence with Aine O’Dwyer’s “Music For Church Cleaners” volumes, the shapeshifting gothic fantasia that you get with the varying reverberance of each Church offers a different perspective on the unsettling moods and slow motion abandonment of these ancient structures.
Great record!
Juno Records, London UK (Staff Picks):
A year or two back, Canadian pianist Blake Hargreaves spent some time touring significant churches in Europe in order to play their mighty pipe organs and record his own improvised pieces. The results, collected here on a curious but hugely enjoyable album, somehow manage to sound both distinctly old and strangely contemporary. What you get is a mixture of jaunty, accessible workouts, hushed laments, slowly shifting ambient pieces and off-the-cuff compositions that draw influence from the cyclical minimalist classics of Steve Reich and Terry Riley. It's certainly a curio, but one that contains some genuinely moving and enjoyable music.
