The Pitch and Julia Reidy — Neutral Star
The Pitch and Julia ReidyNeutral StarAustralian-born Julia Reidy is not only an accomplished guitarist and composer, but the architect of elaborate and extraordinary acoustic soundscapes. Dispensing with standard song structure, Reidy favours episodic fragments of music that in their words embrace ‘unstable harmonic territories, rhythmic elasticity and abstract narrative.’ Where earlier albums including 2019’s Real Life and 2020’s Vanish, centered on electronically-manipulated fingerpicking to create a wholly immersive sonic experience, their last recording, World In World, introduced more space into the music - the intensity dialled down substantially. It’s this musical transition that explains Reidy’s recent move towards a more experimental ambient aesthetic and her gravitation towards working with Berlin quartet, The Pitch. Consisting of Boris Baltschun (organ), Koen Nutters (upright bass), Michael Thieke (clarinet) and Morten Joh (vibes) The Pitch have spent almost 15 years perfecting their ambient electronica, which can be aptly placed somewhere amongst the likes of Tim Hecker, Kali Malone or Death Prod. Theirs is not the branch of transcendent ambient kosmische set up for the listener to drift into interplanetary space, instead The Pitch create opaque and intense drone-centred atmospheres that are both dark in spirit and no less intriguing for it.
On Neutral Star, The Pitch and Julia Reidy have combined their respective talents across the album’s two tracks. This is ambient jazz in a vein similar to that of the Necks – riffing on musical figures that combine the playing of The Pitch with the fingerpicking virtuosity of Reidy. But while Neutral Star may be underscored by a jazz aesthetic, this music also moonlights as an exercise in deep listening with meditative drone permeating throughout.
Endless ≠ Limitless (Side A) was originally composed by Reidy and The Pitch’s vibraphonist, Morten Joh. The track begins with a clarinet and vibe hum accompanied by extremely subtle fingerpicking and deep bass. The instruments proceed to play abstract lines – the drone maintained in the background as the musical textures are consistently and sequentially overlaid. The dynamic builds gradually, the melody rising alongside sonic electronic effects until reaching its crescendo. Coming down the other side, the bass and clarinet urge on the drone, with the vibes and acoustic guitar playing out to the melancholic end.
Track two (Side B), is the eponymously titled ‘Neutral Star’ which is nominally less intense but no less impactful. The jazz core comes through more clearly here as some Reidy’s exquisite fingerpicking is gradually joined by their collaborators. ‘Neutral Star’ gains momentum, but the clarinet and bass are more subtle here – the instruments taking turns to come to the fore on a background of what appears to be synthetic ghostly voices, before again slowly fading to the gentle blow of the clarinet reed and the subtlest bass drum of distant thunder.
Neutral Star was recorded live and in one take at Rabih Beaini’s Morphine Raum studio, the ambient techno producer and DJ, which given the evident complexity on show is rather astounding. This is a piece that defies categorisation and is all the better for it. Neutral Star is available here.