Carrie Frey is a violist based in New York, who frequently explores the less travelled spaces of musicality. I have already talked about her music here, in a positive review of a previous album, Seaglass (2025), on Gold Bolus Records.
Unlike the latter, an acoustic opus, Lesser Arcana ventures into a much more expressionist zone in a program of eight tracks designed for viola and electronics.
Frey weaves ambient textures, but punctuated more or less regularly with textural roughness, more explosive bursts, or soothing lyricism. She rarely dares to showcase technical virtuosity, but manages to make her instrument shine through a varied playing style that is not exclusively limited to long, sustained, floating notes.
Five of cups reversed, the first piece, is also the longest, almost matching the duration of the rest of the program. The sound material contracts and relaxes in all sorts of quite stimulating textural metamorphoses. In a first luminous and almost celestial part, Frey constructs a dynamic counterpoint on the timbral clouds of Alex Van Gils. The setting changes when the electronic evanescence metamorphoses into a pulsating mechanism on which Frey’s viola tries to maintain its individuality. The episode ends with the arrival of a final part that is much more contemplative, but not in a zen way. The generated colours are rather unsettling, and they conclude the piece in this way.
Laugh track is a brilliant creation, which fuses Frey’s voice (a laugh), rhythmically twisted by Van Gils, and the acoustic alto that offers a rare manifestation of nervous agitation. Very successful.
I don’t know if best western is a nod to the mainstream hotel and motel chain, but if it is, strange activities are happening there, set to a soundtrack that reveals folk-tending alto lines and almost hymnic scansion from Van Gils, like brass choirs emphasising a bewildering solemnity.
Whale joke lives up to its title, giving the impression that a drunk whale is trying to make us laugh.
Alan moore’s swamp thing is a kind of tribute to the famous Swamp Creature, star of several B-movie horror films from the 50s and 60s. Here, the electro sound waves generated by Alex Van Gils, combined with Carrie Frey’s grating laments, create a heavy and humid atmosphere; the program notes say “viscous,” which is not incorrect. In truth, Frey’s music is probably more frightening and visceral than the films themselves. Quite memorable and impressive.
Fountains of rome, inspired by the symphonic poem by Ottorino Respighi composed in the early 20th century, gurgles effectively thanks to Van Gils’ digital trickling. Through this sonic sprinkling, Frey scales the space with very expressive atavistic tinges and scratches. The contrast is striking.
Finally, fortitude & the eight of wands immerses us in a sound cave of immense amplitude, with a vast reverb that powerfully carries Frey’s piercing arpeggios and Van Gils’ enveloping atmospheres.
An album that showcases often unforgettable and impressive landscapes, thanks to the composer’s powerful dramatic sense, her technical expressiveness as a violist, and Alex Van Gils’ fitting vision, which perfectly complements that of her partner.
Carrie Frey, violas
Alex Van Gils, synthesis + keyboards
