Darragh Morgan/ VA — For Volin and Electronics Volume II

For Volin and Electronics Volume II is a  CD release collecting together nine tracks where violin and electronica wonderfully meet. Irish violinist Darragh Morgan is a supremely talented & versatile player, who here adds his deft/ at times detailed string work to the work of nine different composers.

The CD comes presented in a glossy four-panel digipak. This features a blue, white, and grey colour scheme, which has a decidedly sleek winter-based vibe. Inside, we get an eight-page inlay booklet detailing where/ when each track was captured, and a short write-up regarding the origin of each of the tracks by Morgan himself.

As one would hope/ expect with this type of release, there’s some nice variation both in the tone of the tracks and in what Morgan does with his violin. We move from locked glitching to skipping skeletal beat works of “Zohar” which was penned by Shiva Feshareki, and finds the violinist spinning out rapid simmers and flashing by swoons.  On Robin Rimburd/Scanner’s “A Cantegral Segment” that finds  Morgan adding moody hovers, eerier picks, and uneasy skuttles to growing synth tone ambient looping

In the release's second half, we move from Mira Calix’s “Just One More Thing” which sees  Morgan adding in layers of dramatic swooning/high-pitched simmer, to a backdrop of scarping ‘n’ slowly swimming electro detail. Onto slowly drifting & rising ambience of Irene Buckley’s “Liminalis” which sees the violinist playing out a wistful/ slightly forlorn melody line over its slowly shifting flow.

For Volin and Electronics Volume II truly is a captivating meeting of Volin and electronics, with clearly some thought be put into the flow/ sonic shape of the release. This can be brought directly from the label here.