Anne Clark & Martyn Bates
Just After Sunset (The Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke)
There’s hardly a better choice to create music for Rainer Maria Rilke’s poetry than Anne Clark in collaboration with Martyn Bates on ’Just After Sunset’. Bates provides the singing while Clark reads the poems over ambient sounds. The result’s the absolute perfect soundtrack for Good Friday. Genuinely “Autumn” leads us back through the ages to the beginning of XIX century. “Songs of the Sea” resonates in sonic textures of tidal waves reflected on Martyn’s acoustic guitar mixed up with piano chords. “To Music” could easily be adapted to fit in on any Eno record. Even though Clark had started as a punker in the late 70’s this album is as far from punk as it could ever be. “The Garden of Olives” creates a feeling of paradise thus freeing negative emotions up. It gently flows into the instrumental “Time & Again” which evokes memories of Yes — ’Time & a Word’ platter. Bates demonstrates vocal cleverness in the pivotal “The Fruit”. In tune with the season comes “Early Spring” entering into a la Enya sonic collage. Bates follows up with with the dreamy “The Apple Orchard” also starring Anne’s whistle. Then we’re transferred to the common for Rilke “Autumn Day” again with its epic orchestration so typical for the period of Romanticism. It continues with the hopeful “Departure of the Prodigal Son”. The closure “Sehnsucht” leaves us with a feeling we’ve experienced the epoch first handedly.