Jankélévitch Sextets is a sixty-four-minute modern composition work, which dwells in mournfully shifting ebbs of drone matter and  lulling tone drift. All to create a piece that feels akin to an unending walk along a barren beach, which is been slowly washed by a glum & grey sea. The release comes in the form of a CD on Sheffield based Another Timbre- who are the go-to label for creative & rewarding modern composition, modern classical music & improv.

Antoine Beuger is a Dutch composer, flautist, music publisher, and fonder of modern composer collective Wandelweiser group-which features the likes of Jürg Frey, Anastassis Philippakopoulos, Stefan Thut, Johnny Chang and others. Between the years 1973 to 1978, he studied composition with Ton de Leeuw at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam. He lives in Haan, Germany, near Düsseldorf and he is a frequently featured composer at the Donaueschinger Musiktage.

This CD is the fourth in a series of releases that have see Beuger acknowledging figures he respected- and this time its Valdimir Jankélévitch(1903- 1985) who was a philosopher & musicologist, as well as been an active member of the resistance in WWII. The piece is played by respected modern ensemble Apartment House- which features James Opstad- Double Bass, Mark Knoop- accordion, Heather Roche- Bass Clarinet, Mira Benjamin- Volin, Joe Qiu- bassoon, and Bridget Carey- Viola.

The piece was composed in 2004, it runs for 64.20, and is presented here as one long track. The work is built around a series of glumly languid drones & murkily hovering tones, which either gentle pitch-shift or fade out to silence- before returning once again. The tonal range is fairly narrow, and the whole composition is both greyly simmering & bleakly drifting in it’s very slowly controlled unfold, and the way it dips in & out of silence means it’s difficult to gauge where you are in the composition.  At points, we reach grandly grim rises or jointly sustained simmers, and these create a feel akin of staring across some truly vast through barren landscape.

Jankélévitch Sextets is very much primed for bleak contemplation- it’s a work you have to slow down & fall into, letting the grimly ebbing structure pull you deep in. Not an instant or easy listen, but if you're in the mood for drift in long-form sonic melancholia this will most certainly fit the job.