Spencer Doran takes us back in time with his appreciation of an “outsider’ Renaissance composer
The premise of One Track Mind is pretty simple: I ask artists to pick one track that means a lot to them – either something they’ve discovered recently, something that’s been with them for years, or one that reminds them of a specific time in their life or career – and tell me what makes it so special to them. I get to talk to the artists I love, and they get to talk about the artists they love. Love all round!
Described by Bandcamp Daily as “Video Game Music’s Most Valuable Outsider”, Spencer Doran is a composer, producer and contemporary sound designer who makes up one half of the Portland duo and Italian minimalism enthusiasts Visible Cloaks.
Composed and produced over the course of nearly three years, his latest solo album is the original soundtrack for SEASON: A letter to the future, which underpins the highly-anticipated meditative exploration game in which the main character must save memories of a civilization on the verge of collapse. A lush collection of transmissions from this warmly fading world, we hear a culture and ecology through the sentimental ear of their last witness.
For his One Track Mind selection, Spencer has picked an entire album from Tobias Hume, focussing on a particular performance from Jordi Savall.
Spencer Doran on Tobias Hume’s Musicall Humors
“In the past decade I may have listened to this record more than any other – it’s the sort of LP you can turn over and over without a complaint from anyone in the room. Hume isn’t a deeply canonical figure as far as Renaissance composers go, and could perhaps be considered more of an amateur or “outsider” as he spent the bulk of his life as a for-hire mercenary soldier between different principalities and not as a court musician.
“It’s clear this freedom from the demands of a salaried music career afforded him a space for developing a worn, idiosyncratic style: by approaching the viol polyphonically like a lute, the pieces explode with resonances and tonal complexity, using double-note bowing and sweeping strums across the whole string set.
“Jordi Savall’s performance magnifies their sonorous nature in a way that is deeply inviting and truly joyful to listen to. The recording is closely mic-ed, direct with a stereo image that feels very physical, somewhere within the texture of air and wood; on a nice speaker setup it sits like an instrument in the room. Its beauty and depth are clear even if listened indirectly but the details and technical mastery blossom upon close listening. There are not many things that are like this in the world.
“From what I can surmise these pieces weren’t well known prior to Savall (himself among the world’s the greatest living musicians) championing them, despite being the first book of solo music for the instrument. Hume’s collected works also contain a number of satirical Satie-like conceptual pieces and extended technique notation that work with the score as a meta-text in a way that feels quite contemporary (or at least modernist), and there is also a nice book of ensemble works Poeticall Musicke which Savall recorded with his group Hespèrion XX. But solo works most closely reveal a life’s edges, especially as expanses of time widen.”
Spencer Doran – SEASON: A letter to the future (Original Soundtrack) is out now
https://visiblecloaks.bandcamp.com/album/season-a-letter-to-the-future-original-soundtrack
The Predatory Wasp 