The minimalist composer trades his usual chamber ensemble for the comparatively monochromatic tones of the Farfisa organ.
As Bing & Ruth, composer and pianist David Moore aims for quiet grandeur. His music attempts to capture the essence of transcendent experiences, like the glorious, humbling feeling of being dwarfed by the immensity of nature, or the calm, gauzy moment between consciousness and sleep. He falls into the lineage of minimalists like John Luther Adams, Terry Riley, and Gavin Bryars, composers that evoke the personal revelation of existential beauty, and there are moments in Moore’s discography that live up to that spiritual and emotional ambition. Moore sets himself apart from contemporary minimalists like Kali Malone, Ellen Arkbro, and Kara-Lis Coverdale in his steadfast dedication to a sense of pensive beauty over all else. Rarely has he let darkness or discord seep into his work.
On its surface, Species, Bing & Ruth’s fourth album, feels like a tonal and stylistic break from the relentlessly wide-eyed posture of Tomorrow Is the Golden Age and No Home of the Mind. On those albums, Moore’s piano was the most consistent element; over strings, winds, and tape delay, he made the instrument billow and ripple, causing simple chordal patterns to feel momentous. The vast majority of the sounds on Species were made with a Farfisa organ, a relatively compact keyboard that creates a warm, buzzing tone. Philip Glass frequently used the instrument, and it was notably featured on Steve Reich’s Four Organs. Trading the timbral menagerie of an expanded chamber ensemble for something more barren and monochromatic, Moore is occasionally forced out of his comfort zone into abstraction and dissonance. These forays can feel like a significant artistic leap, but complacency flattens some of this music, occasionally exposing the emptiness of certain compositional habits that, in the past, he’s been able to dress up with lush arrangements.
In some instances, Moore has translated the basic template of earlier Bing & Ruth albums into this new sonic landscape. One of his most recognizable compositional tics is the juxtaposition of slow-moving chordal patterns with quickly flowing arpeggios, and on the piano, with its expressive dynamic range, the trick can be entrancing. This is still the dominant mode on Species, but on Farfisa it plays out as a reenactment of Reich and Riley, awakening only a shallow sense of optimism rather than the metaphysical wonder elicited by those pioneers. In several cases, like “Badwater Psalm,” Moore picks a simple melodic phrase, couples it with a dramatic chord progression, and does little else to craft a journey for the listener. Intensity is a crucial component of the best minimalism, but it appears on this album only in fits and spurts.
“The Pressure of This Water,” which appears late in the album, is its most interesting piece. At its center is a modal arpeggiated pattern that is woven into revolving, slowly moving chord clusters that repeat for the duration of the composition. With each repetition they seem to melt further into each other, certain tones elongating and stretching beyond their original parameters. Halfway through, a swell of bowed upright bass emerges, fixated on a cyclically dissonant low pedal note, causing the originally celestial chord progression to feel claustrophobic as it uncomfortably unspools. In its last 90 seconds, the piece dissolves into the solemn ease of an open fifth, resolving. It is a remarkably beautiful moment, one made even more entrancing by the tension that preceded it.
In a statement accompanying the release of Species, Moore describes writing the album as a process of losing himself in the oceanic expanse of Point Dume, near Malibu, and “finding a nothingness so big it must contain everything.” But sometimes this nothingness just points right back to itself, vacant and hollow. One of the most impressive aspects of Bing & Ruth records, Species included, is Moore’s insistence on recording his ensemble live. In moments where this technique is especially apparent—like when Moor’s breathing is audible on “Live Forever”—we are reminded of the presence and complexity of the humans behind the music, which cultivates nuance and depth. These moments are a reminder that the most beautiful parts of life aren’t the most placid or consonant, but those in which the tangly mess of being a person becomes revelatory.
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