Melaine Dalibert — Musique Pour Le Lever Du Jour

Musique Pour Le Lever Du Jour( Music For The Daybreak) is a soothing, hypnotic, though slightly melancholic solo piano work. Over it’s just over hour runtime we get a series of  repetitive/ simplistic notation that has a fairly harmonic & hopeful flavor to them- all of this creates both the feeling of slow changing grandeur, and the longing mystery  & sadness of time its self.

This release comes in the form of a CD- and it’s the first release on New Jersey-based label Elsewhere Music- whose mission statement is to release contemporary work which has classical music aesthetics at its roots, but may not  strictly belong to the area of contemporary classical music. The release comes in mini gatefold- this features different colored & different thickness lines, and black pyramid shapes against a dark blue background- all nicely creating an abstract, yet effective bit of packaging.

I first became aware of this French pianist/composers work with last years Ressac ( on Another Timbre)- this release highlighted the Frenchman’s ability to create starkly beautiful & haunting piano music- that had both mood & melody, without been in any way  twee or contrived.  And I’m pleased to report that Musique Pour Le Lever Du Jour is up to the same standard & quality of Ressac.

The piece finds Dalibert playing out a series of simplistic & repeated notation- these initially have a fairly hopeful, warming & pleasing feel to them. But over time & repetition, they start to become more melancholic, forlorn & haunting. The patterns are played in a fairly steady mid-range speed- though there are effective pauses after each cycle, and these are nicely dipped with moody drifting reverb.  Throughout the patterns remain fairly fixed in their harmonic pitter/ patter- lacking say the more angular moments of a Feldman composition, but instead brought to mind the same vibe of say William Basinski work- but of course without the tape decay/ manipulation.

I’d say as a work Musique Pour Le Lever Du Jour is more sparser piano ambience than modern classical minimalism. And I must say it’s rather pleasing & soothing in it unfolds- but what makes it most interesting is the way the repetition seems to shift the mood from fairly bright & hopefully, to slight more forlorn & sad setting. I’m looking forward to hearing more work from Dalibert, and this new label too- as they clearly have a great ear for selecting work to put out.