michael rütten
just need this . really. you too.
"time is away", there is no better title for this compilation and their radioshow on nts. stops the world for a moment
Gerrit
The whole journey in this mix is just so.. inspiring.. beautiful. Indeed, the perfect mixtape - where the sum is larger than the individual tracks and becomes something of a personal memento. reminding me of a special time in my life.
Favorite track: just (after song of songs).
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Over the better half of a decade, Time is Away, the London-based duo of Jack Rollo and Elaine Tierney, have made tender and heartfelt transmissions through countless mixes, sound works, live appearances and radio. Exploring deeply human themes of memory, persistence and resistance using an assemblage of source material, the duo’s unique mode of storytelling culminates in Ballads, a new suite of songs and, significantly, their first officially licensed compilation.
From the opening notes of Horvitz Morris Previte Trio’s jazz romanticism to Gilles Chabenat and Frédéric Paris’s lively reimagined standard, the haunting vocal seance of Tanto Pressanto and the mesmerising swirls of The Unthanks, Yuko Kono and Rachel Bonch-Bruevich, the spirit of Ballads roams through generations of affectionate songwriting and conjures images both candid and surreal. The voice of poet and longtime collaborator Christina Petrie appears briefly and contemplates the “sighs and replies… the space between verses” of the Ballad, its beauty, its place in our lives. What is the Ballad but a reflection of our soul? “Perhaps I’ll wander in search of it”, she bittersweetly concedes.
At the suite’s cusp is an alternate version of David Lang’s 'just (after song of songs)’, a thirteen-minute meditation on devotion that originally featured in Paolo Sorrentino’s Youth (2015). The track’s universal themes of faith and desire radiate throughout and elucidate Time is Away’s peerlessly precise yet gossamer touch.
Four dancing steps, one after the other, leading to a turn.
Four biting lines, one after the other, leading to a twist.
Through the sighs and replies of the ballad form, a shape persists – four and then four and then four and then four, on into the distance.
Between one thorn tree and the next, in the space between verses, perhaps I’ll find the ballad of my life, and live to hear it.
Or perhaps I’ll wander in search of it, drifting through the unfurling lines, and defer my poignant fate.
Time is Away is Jack Rollo and Elaine Tierney, two visionary storytellers who map personal, poetic and sometimes playful dérives through the histories of their imagination. The voice is an instrument, a letter from home, the colour of pomegranates... pastoral mysteries and idyllic myths weaved from an inventory of dreams.
credits
released November 11, 2022
Compiled by Jack Rollo and Elaine Tierney
Mastered by Mark Klon at Klon Studios
Cut by Tom Haunstein at R.A.N.D. Muzik
Paintings by Flora Whiteley
Layout by Matthew Xue
Thank you, Christina Petrie, Flora Whiteley, Matthieu Beck, Philippe Geiss and Emmanuel Sejourne, Barbara Kinga Majewska, Alvaro Peña, Catherine Treese
Short and sweet, no wasted moments, subtle guitar lines make it easy to miss how inventive they are. I actually appreciate the live to tape recordings including whatever is going on in the background; it's not obtrusive. And some electronic dabbling. An intimate album fans of bedroom folk, Vashti Bunyan, etc will appreciate and love more with repeated listens. Anthony Childs
a small but intimate microcosm, with ‘fragments’ as its nucleus, one of the year’s most haunting, indelible songs. overall, an enigmatic work that yearns for the world even as it retreats into hermitage Harrison Phinney
Beginning as a series of immersive improvisations, the ambient tracks on “Wake” explore subconscious feelings & memories. Bandcamp New & Notable May 16, 2022