Nicolas Bernier - Music For A Piano / Music For A Book (CD)

I’ve listened to this chapster before. Here he fleshes out his intuitive brain mumbles and musical pondering into a two-disc set of lush neoclassical tinkering and experimental electronics. ‘Music for t’Piano’ is the first chapter and is the sound of a man constructing tender and dark mood-scapes with this particular tremulous antiquity, his work in the electro-acoustic and classical realms comes to the fore here with some lovely sad-hued chamber strings and subtle tonal glitch. ‘Ostinato’ falls some place between Nils Frahm and Machinefabriek with a spot of Dirty Three, so nice then! Some pieces here quite abstract and thought-provoking, making great use of tension and acoustic space to create something both sensual and unnerving.

Onto the other compact drinks coaster now and the track ‘Aurore II’, which features the rustles of field recordings which mingle effortlessly with more discreet acoustic clatters and bangs and the whispering carpet of open strings, vibraphone and low bass throbs. This is the kind of music I love to drift off to of an eve, although that is probably not doing the composer’s work justice. But take it from me Nicolas, if I get up well rested and refreshed in a morning it is because your lush minimal sounds have greeted my subconscious and made slumbertime an incredible place to be.