review of river icarus

River Icarus dawns more than begins as a strong warm tone grows and resonates in my chest. It pulses and fades as confused high sounds reach up, in, through and toward something. A faraway scream circles larger and larger as it dissolves into scratches. Now and then the high piercing tones stop and the result is a moment of calm, even joy – almost. The piercing tones come and go like thoughts disturbing a dream and I m not sure which to reach for.

I experience much of Kathy McTavish’s cello work as overlapping memory and thought references. Compared to earlier pieces, River Icarus is more clearly a journey. The pattern of references moves from a feeling of awakening through discord, discontent, scattered and confused thoughts into periods of almost clarity, almost comfort. The almost continually pulls me forward. It is the almost contained in every wave that lifts and lowers. And like those waves there is a signature pulsing, thrumming, relentless life that is sometimes disturbing and sometimes comforting. So it is the context that matters and it is the context that is hard to grasp and put into words. Each chord, each tone that grows toward clarity refers to a memory; I have heard that tone before – and every time I hear it the reference is stronger. It builds the way experience builds, life builds, so that each event holds the memory of the past until the background is thick, dense, complicated and the moment is fleeting like the echo of a harmonic.

As intellectual as McTavish’s work is it is not meant to be experienced intellectually; it is meant to move. That said I want to answer the question “What is creating the context here?”. And so with apology to Kathy and all listeners, I dissect: the harmonics come and go like thoughts, disturbed thoughts, enlightened thoughts, hopeful thoughts, back of my mind vague just out of reach thoughts. The lower, warm, almost organ-like chords enter like feelings of good will, like a mother’s smell, like deep sleep and fade like something almost grasped. What remains is a particular tonal memory that makes the presence of that chord or note stronger the next time. The context is created by repetition but it is not the stanza-chorus-stanza of more common music. Instead it is like traditional artwork that depends for power on the repetition of collected objects, the more feathers, shells, references to memory, the stronger its presence.

Now and again there is a hint at melody which implies something familiar and taps into the human desire to make sense of it. Sometimes a tone enters and leaves resonating like the striking of a bell. This acts to clear my ear and prepares me for the next body of sounds. I find myself hanging on a clear mid-tone that inevitably fades into something less comfortable. It leaves me yearning for the next clear tone as sounds fold into each other like the outgoing tide feeds the next wave.

River Icarus seems to resolve but as I remove my headphones I have the feeling that I am pulling out and the river continues. I didn’t travel this river, it flowed through me.