Richard Carr is a violinist and composer from New York. He is active in contemporary music as well as jazz. August Light for string quartet plus bass and piano, with added electronics. Carr’s generally soaring style and the recording venue (a former church converted into a studio) transport the listener into a fairly wide reverberation bath.
If the scores are occasionally spiced up with a few avant-garde contemporary language techniques, it’s in a very delicate and subtle way. Carr flirts sparingly with dissonance, or even onomatopoeic singing, but rarely strays into grating, abusive avant-gardism (oh, perhaps with the exception of Atmospheric River, a less-than-three-minute ride on stirring, threatening waves, and Play With Fire, a rough, offbeat blues). The general atmosphere of gentleness and peaceful contemplation remains the main thread that constantly links the 12 tracks on the album, and sets the whole thing in a style that’s a little ambient chamber rock, a little contemporary neo-classical, but nothing like Einaudi and co.
All in all, a very fine panorama, caressed by a slight but recurring breeze of mystery and strangeness. It’s enough to calmly transport you somewhere else….
