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Review: 'MORPHITIS, CHRIS'
'Where To Go'   

-  Label: 'Village Green'
-  Genre: 'Ambient' -  Release Date: '12th November 2013'

Our Rating:
The debut album by this London based composer, guitarist and producer combines a love of West African and Greek music with a reverence for Steve Reich's minimalist works.

Recordings have been drawn from live performances, then reassembled in a suburban garden shed come studio and contain a fluid, expansive range of sophisticated sounds.

The relatively ten short, three or four minute instrumental tracks manage to pack a lot of variety with the classy assistance of five other musicians including Moroccan violinist Hassan Errajii and British cellist Ian Burdge.

The Reichian counterpoint influence is most evident on Yellow Lines and Peel Free where Morphitis' jazzy style of playing has a lot in common with Pat Metheny.

The diverse moods shift and shimmer, beginning with the delicate opening track,The Count (dedicated to his baby daughter Alexi) on though some heavier fuzz guitar on Claustro and is perhaps best realized with the gorgeous complexity of the title track, Where To Go, which features a polymorphic mix of fast-slow textures and has been expertly interpreted in video form by two Royal College of Art students.

By the side of this, a classical ambient piece like If 52 sounds pleasant but rather dull although the album concludes strongly with Chartwell a homage to Zimbabwean thumb piano (mbira) player Chartwell Dutiro.

An elegant and atmospheric album.




  author: Martin Raybould

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MORPHITIS, CHRIS - Where To Go