Aisha Orazbayeva - Music For Violin Alone [SN Variations 001 Promo]

Picked up by SN Variations for release on July 3rd, 2k20 only shortly after being put out by the artist on the digital circuit on her own is "Music For Violin Alone", the latest and fourth solo album by Kasakhstan-born, now London-based artist and composer Aisha Orazbayeva which she recorded throughout the first to weeks of the COVID-19 induced lockdown in France. The result are a total of seven pieces on a 38 minutes spanning longplayer, seeing Orazbayeva re-imagining works by other composers before closing out with her own "Ring" towards the end. Starting with her take on Angharad Davies' "Circular Bowing Study" Aisha Orazbayeva opens with a thrilling, slightly unnerving and intense take on hypermodernist Contemporary Classical before taking on Johann Sebastian Bach's "Largo From Sonata No. 3 In C Major" for a nearly 300 years backwards time leap as this well-romantic piece of Chamber Music was written in 1720 as was the subsequent "Alia Fantasia" by Nicola Matteis Jr. which sees expertly executed frolicking liveliness being present in Aisha Orazbayeva's violin skills, even after coming out of an extended period of maternity leave. Following up with Oliver Leith's "Blurry Wake Song" we're drawn into a world of slowly moving, slightly dissonant harmonic layers, "KOAN" by James Tenney caters alarming, seductive and siren'esque, ever spiralling sonic movements whereas John Cage's "Eight Whiskus" sees the experimental composer in a surprisingly tender, melodic, somewhat rural, mystical, nordic and truly Classical light before Orazbayeva's "Ring" provides more of an experimental, advanced and raw approach to slow violin micro-movements with probably the whole instrument being mic'd up to capture even the faintest sounds and vibrations not only off the bow but also the strings, neck and instruments body to make this composition sound like something leaking through from a parallel, yet vantablack and ghostly universe. Classical and Contemporary Classical music can be a thrill. This album provides proof. Go check.