Album Review: Rhian Sheehan – Recollections, Vol.1

Rhian Sheehan – Recollections, Vol.1
(LOOP)

Reviewed by Tim Gruar.

Comedian Bill Bailey once made a joke about the best way to listen to Pink Floyd – you pull the curtains, lie on the floor, turn the speakers over and pump up the volume, and plunge yourself in the psychedelic soundscapes, breathing in the music through every pore. Crazy, man!

But it’s true. Music really does have the power to transport you, to soothe and caress. Within our Covid bubbles we welcome tranquillity, we welcome haven and solitude. Outside the world is awakening, traffic vibrations and the clutter of modern living is starting to return. We still remember those early days of level four when it was so quiet you could almost hear the birds breathing. Rhian Sheehan makes the kind of ambient music that can recreate this tranquil, astral bliss.

I once had the pleasure of meeting Rhian, in the small flat in Newtown where he made his debut album ‘Paradigm Shift’. He showed me the tiny spare room where it was created with just a laptop, keys and a guitar. I was amazed at what incredibly cinematic aural landscape could be produced with such rudimentary tools and unlimited imagination. It was an album that explored science, philosophy and looked beyond the ozone out into the vastness of space.

With that work as his template the Wellington composer has gone on to make six albums, dozens of film soundtracks and scores (including music for The UK National Space Centre, Weta Workshop productions like the interactive ‘Dr Grordbort’s Invaders’, mobile phone games like ‘Monument’, Go-Pro and Nike adverts and planetarium soundtracks). He’s also held several incredible audio-visual concerts involving live musicians, orchestras and digital light shows that were out of this world.

All this time, his music like his personality, remains calm, temperate and rational, and eternally ambitious. Panic and alarm do not feature. Even when the subject matter demands some urgency, like climate change – a common theme in his work. This was the case with one of his most inspired works: the album ‘Standing In Silence’, informed by a trip to India and the extremes of humanity. Rhian’s work has become ever more grand. Last year he created music for Brian Eno’s ‘ Voices For The Future’ project, which was projected with an enormous immersive artwork by fellow Kiwi Michael Joseph (Project Pressure) portraying decaying icebergs across the UN’s headquarters in New York.

‘Recollections, Vol 1’ is a superb curation of some of his best work, selected first mainly from his albums, plus unreleased recordings and live performances. Describing his works to the untrained ear is challenging but think of composers like Max Richter or Hans Zimmer.

It starts, appropriately with ‘Borrowing From The Past’, a wash of stars, colours and darkness, interchanging, spreading slowly across the stratosphere. The track comes from his e.p. ‘Seven Tales From The North Wind’ (2011). It’s also worth hunting down the remix version by Nashville Ambient/Post-rockers Hammock.

Fans of Downton Abbey may sit up and tax notice when they hear ‘The Absence Of You’, due to the familiar cadence of the opening strings. Like the opening shots, you imagine yourself being transported through a tunnel of green out onto an bright and open meadow, then spins you around, swirling in the ecstasy of a lush expansive pasture. Perhaps this wasn’t the original intension, but this is where my head goes now when I hear it. As I listen closely in my bubble, I long for those wide-open spaces and this is the music that allows me to travel there.

And there are more gems, like the delicate and delightful ‘Boîte à musique’ (The Music Box), from 2013’s ‘Stories from Elsewhere’, based around a loop sample made from a music box comb that Rhian reconfigured. As part of a promotion gimmick for that album, he sent out some of these nifty wee wind-up mechanisms – I still have mine, and treasure it. In a sense, this is a continuation of an earlier theme, with another comb loop used on 2009’s ‘Standing In Silence (Pt 3)’, which also appears on this compilation.

“April’, with its lush string arrangements, is just beautiful – dreamy almost. And there’s offerings from his most recent work ‘A Quiet Divide’, including the lingering work ‘Towards the Sun’ with Levi Patel which almost floats in its own stratosphere. You can’t help floating to the ceiling on this one.

‘Paradigm Shift’ featured a few early quirky DJ jaunts, like ‘Walked Into Mine’, which samples old movies. Sadly, this is missing in action but we do get other variations on the theme like ‘Still’ and an awkwardly moody live recording of ‘Tokyo Shadows’, which features samples of railway platform announcements. Given our lock down world, this reference to travel seems odd and discomforting. Then there’s a beguiling number called ‘The Upper Sky’ which sounds like Mozart on a space station and reminded me of floating through the set of ‘Space 1999’.

The live cuts of the beautifully drifting ‘Between Us And The Dying Starlight’ (from ‘Stories From Elsewhere’) is pure intoxication for those wanting full emersion into escapism. Likewise, there’s a delicious piece called ‘Imber’ that’s equally compelling. Other highlights include ‘A Thimble Full of Sorrow’, ‘Little Sines’, ‘The Upper Sky’, an epic piece called ‘Somnus’, and ‘Nusquam’, which was recorded live at a concert I had the pleasure of attending in Wellington during 2013. ‘Paradigm Shift’, the album that started it all gets a nod, too. With a simple, intimate acoustic entry (created on the very guitar I once saw sitting in that Newtown flat) called ‘Journey to Wakatuhuri’.

At nearly two hours, this is a generous and indulgent set. You wonder how hard it was to compile. There may have been a few anxious arguments over what was left out and what finally made the cut. Still a second volume will make up for that. In the meantime, as we feel the pressure to return to our previously chaotic lives, take time to think of what you may have gained in these unprecedented times. Think of the quiet, the still, the return of birdsong and the absence of traffic noise. Then put your headphones back on and pretend we’re still back in level four.

This content is a part of our NZ Music Month coverage, celebrating old, new and upcoming Kiwi artists. Support local. Stream local. Follow local. Buy local. For more information on NZ Music Month you can visit their website.

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