The older one gets, the more the passage of time seems a mystery. Ukrainian-American ambient composer Kirill Nikolai has been quiet for a while, but we were stunned to realize that ten years had passed since we reviewed Letting Go Variations, which also made our Best Packaging list in 2016. Fittingly, Nicolai’s return on the Falt label plays with concepts of time through tape loops of what seems like an ancient choir; it’s the sort of music one might unearth on a tape while going through the tattered boxes of a loved one after a memorial service.
Solennelle (Solemn) is a single 17:38 piece, but it is more properly the tale of two parts; three if one is to count the coda. The first, comprising over half of the piece, is filament-thin, the quiet sound of Nikolai’s oscillators and Selene Vass’ clarinet. These sounds are stretched peacefully across the speakers, implying a house at rest, the quietude of a home with all devices turned off and only appliance hums to fill the silence. At 5:37, there really is silence, a ten-second void like an inhalation of breath, preceding a soft return, like a ceiling fan in motion.
But something special happens in the ninth minute, as organ tones and choir begin to seep in, soothing and soft. The church association is direct, as the piece was first performed at the Chapel Performance Space in Seattle. These tones eventually become dominant. The chord progression mirrors the third line of “Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus,” gracing the piece with an Advent tone. One can feel the wonder, and if one closes one’s eyes one can almost smell the incense and imagine a candle in one’s hand. This wondrous segment lasts nearly to the end of the piece, and washes over the listener like the comfort of the past and the hope of the future intertwined.
But Nikolai still has one more trick up his sleeve. In its final minutes, the composition begins to crumple, burning at the edges like a singed bulletin, the chords growing distorted and eventually turning into ash. This intrusion of the present – the illusion of the loop destroyed – is like a return to reality after a spiritual experience. Yet one remains grateful for the brief respite: the moments, however brief, when one could imagine a world more peaceful, more centered, more hallowed than the one in which we live. (Richard Allen)
a closer listen 