Country : United States Label : Neuma Genres and styles : Contemporary / Electroacoustic / Electronic Year : 2022

Dylan Ward – Tourmaline

· by Frédéric Cardin

Tourmaline is a semi-precious stone with iridescent reflections that seem to constantly play with light rays in order to reshape them into a multitude of vibrant colours. A natural eclecticism that perfectly suits this eponymous album of new electroacoustic compositions for saxophone and digital score.

If the first two pieces of Tourmaline offer us a pleasant sound world, playful at times, the next two transport us into a much more disturbing dimension, while the last one is resolutely contemplative. What they all have in common is the symbiotic approach between the sax (whether soprano, alto or tenor) and the electronic framework of the composers. One is forced to strain one’s ear and concentrate on trying to separate the two. But in the end, you give up and let yourself be taken in by these strange and bewitching maelstroms of sound.

Alexandra Gardner’s Tourmaline and Viet Cuong’s Naica adequately evoke the luminous opalescence of a bewitching minerality. We witness a fascinating display of fluttering activity, like so many elementary particles playing hide-and-seek in a quantum field of constant, but slight, quivering energy.

It is as beautiful and intellectually stimulating as it is playful and, despite everything, accessible.

Dylan Ward – Credit: Artist Web Site

Angelus Novus by Seth Andrew Davis takes us somewhere else entirely. Inspired by a Klee painting, this intense diatribe veers into white noise, like an old-fashioned TV receiver that you try to adjust with an antenna, which you only need to fleetingly touch to take you from the Green Acres to an alien sonic assault. An experience of auditory schizophrenia that turns into extreme psychedelia.

Kenneth Michael Florence’s Seven Steps begins with a guitar riff continuo, followed by the saxophone flickering over pianistic colour effects in an almost pastoral landscape. The two moods come and go, then intertwine in a dialogue of the deaf that finally finds its balance towards the end, albeit precariously, and above all indecisively, as the whole thing ends… on a good old fade out!

With Sum of its Parts, Emma O’Halloran paints a noisy landscape that gradually reveals itself to us and serves as a support to a lyrical saxophone that draws out ample and solemn phrases. The ensemble gives the impression of a digital sunrise on an Azimovian planet. A very successful impressionism 2.0! The scene becomes more complicated towards the end, with the arrival of a storm or the advance of a cloud of hornets (it depends). A surprising and logical conclusion to an album that has never ceased to surprise and seduce us since the beginning.

Dylan Ward is a talented saxophonist who dares to be demanding of music lovers, but rewards them with music that is clear and coherent in its discourse and original in its sounds, and that communicates its intentions directly. Contemporary, avant-garde, but not abstruse at all.

Latest 360 Content

Festival des Saveurs | Carminda Mac Lorin, The Woman of Many Hats

Festival des Saveurs | Carminda Mac Lorin, The Woman of Many Hats

SAT X EAF | Amselysen and The Ideal Perfume of A Serial Killer

SAT X EAF | Amselysen and The Ideal Perfume of A Serial Killer

Festival Classica 2025 | Women’s Cellos

Festival Classica 2025 | Women’s Cellos

Nuits d’Afrique 2025: ALL About The Program

Nuits d’Afrique 2025: ALL About The Program

Festival Classica: An Ode to Hope with Elvira Misbakhova

Festival Classica: An Ode to Hope with Elvira Misbakhova

Festival des Saveurs | Aldo Guizmo Goes “Str8 Forward”

Festival des Saveurs | Aldo Guizmo Goes “Str8 Forward”

Deafhaven – Lonely People with Power

Deafhaven – Lonely People with Power

Transforming Hiroshima mon amour into contemporary opera: Christian Lapointe and Rosa Lind tell the story

Transforming Hiroshima mon amour into contemporary opera: Christian Lapointe and Rosa Lind tell the story

Sparks – MAD!

Sparks – MAD!

“Hiroshima, mon amour”: An Evening to Remember

“Hiroshima, mon amour”: An Evening to Remember

Peter Murphy – Silver Shade

Peter Murphy – Silver Shade

Ken Pomeroy – Cruel World

Ken Pomeroy – Cruel World

Art of the Line: Klangkarussell’s Euro Vision at SAT

Art of the Line: Klangkarussell’s Euro Vision at SAT

Festival des Saveurs | Closing With Reggae

Festival des Saveurs | Closing With Reggae

Centroamérica – a powerful docu-play about truth and connection in an age of distance and denial

Centroamérica – a powerful docu-play about truth and connection in an age of distance and denial

Lido Pimienta – La Belleza

Lido Pimienta – La Belleza

Tamir Barzilay – Phosphene Journal

Tamir Barzilay – Phosphene Journal

The best ‘’Candlelight concert‘’ ever.

The best ‘’Candlelight concert‘’ ever.

Men I Trust – Equus Caballus

Men I Trust – Equus Caballus

The Halluci Nation – Path of the Baby Face

The Halluci Nation – Path of the Baby Face

A lap steel guitar choir and an angel to end the Innovations en concert 24-25 season

A lap steel guitar choir and an angel to end the Innovations en concert 24-25 season

The OSM and Abel Selaocoe: Evenings When You’d Like to Stop Time

The OSM and Abel Selaocoe: Evenings When You’d Like to Stop Time

Reaching for the sky: Francis Choinière’s challenge to end his OPCM’s 10th season

Reaching for the sky: Francis Choinière’s challenge to end his OPCM’s 10th season

Subscribe to our newsletter