Watch Over Us
Blue Griffin, 2023
8/10
The Academy Award winning violinist Yvonne Lam makes quite an impression with this debut solo album, where electronics and music by Anna Clyne, Eve Beglarian, Kate Moore, Katherine Balch and Missy Mazzoli, plus a world premiere thanks to Nathalie Joachim, makes for a modern, classical listen.
“Tooth And Nail”, by Mazzoli, opens the album with the mesmerizing strings making for busy versus calm moments of beauty, and Balch’s “Apartment Sounds” follows with the playful electronics complementing the precisely plucked strings.
In the middle, the low buzzing of “Watch Over Us”, which is a Joachim piece, blends the organic versus the synthetic in fascinating, thoughtful ways, while Beglarian’s “Well-Spent” quivers with dynamic string manipulation and chilling electronics. The final track, “Synaesthesia Suite”, finds itself in cinematic territory via the hypnotic electronica and colorful violin that unfolds across 17+ minutes of exploration.
Lam was the violinist and Co-Artistic Director of Eighth Blackbird from 2011-2019, and she brings plenty of experience in many orchestras that help make this solo effort an exciting and innovative affair.
Travels well with: David Biedenbender- All We Are Given We Cannot Hold; Duo Shu- Duo Shu