Hopeful Monsters
No Hay, 2023
8/10
The inimitable artists Eve Egoyan and Maurico Pauly bring their improvisation abilities to these truly unique electroacoustic 10 tracks.
Egoyan’s warm and agile keys open the listen with “Spore”, where Pauly’s electronic ideas are both gentle and inviting, and “Dive (Wait)” follows with a hint of ominousness that’s shrouded in mystery via the dense droning.
Halfway through, the pretty keys of “Stilled Shadow” lead into a bare intimacy of subdued exploration, while “Agree No Frown” is a firm and unpredictable display of wordless vocals and wild drumming acrobatics.
“Height” and “Effort Grind Braid” exit the listen, where the former carries an atypical dreaminess of cinematic qualities, and the latter comes with a strategic disjointedness that radiates an iconoclastic vision.
The affair was captured in June of 2022 at the Fei and Milton Wong Experimental Theatre in Vancouver, and it illustrates Egoyan’s bold timre on piano and Pauly’s inimitable samples, processing, chromaharp and drum bundle that few others could replicate.
Travels well with: Noam Bierstone- Mountains Move Like Clouds; No Hay Banda- I Had A Dream About This Place