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Reviewer: Mark Seow
It is a rare and wonderful thing when a sequel surpasses its first instalment.
In my review of Vol 1 of Phantasm’s ‘The Well-Tempered Consort’ (3/20), I
praised the ‘generous, marital blend’, the ‘sweet spot of individual voices in
psychic attunement’. In this, its stunning sequel, Phantasm achieve the above
and more: the sound is somehow more robust, more alive. Perhaps this is because
these arrangements seem to be less suited to the viol than those presented in
Vol 1. The slight unwieldiness of some of the melodic shapes when translated to
viol-playing creates a funky physicality. Bach’s music is etched with the
tantalising sound of challenge. It’s thrilling stuff that, honestly, I’m
struggling to put into words. The Fugue in C sharp minor, BWV849 (Book 1), for
example, moves from a mourning meandering, a fingered feeling-out of blackened
space, into a spiral of sonic tentacles that inexorably grows in, well,
something. Intensity isn’t quite the word, and nor is tension. There’s a chewy
materiality to Phantasm’s sound, as if it’s something pulled between the
players, an elasticity of resonance. |
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