Lei Lang - "Hearing Landscapes/Hearing Icescapes" album review

 Lei Lang - Hearing Landscapes/Hearing Icescapes album review

Award-winning composer Lei Lang is the ultimate embodiment of a multidisciplinary artist. Hearing Landscapes/Hearing Icescapes draws inspiration and musical material from painting, folk song, and scientific disciplines. While an engaging sonic result, little of Lang's research-based composition creates anything meaningful to the listener. The album is successful in terms of sound, but only if one does not have to engage further with the music. Lang accidentally demonstrates that complex compositional methods will often still create just a general wash of sound. My only question is, does the album's desired reflection of the relationship between humanity and nature actually come across, or do we just think it does after having read the liner notes?



Out of the two works, the first, Hearing Landscapes, is significantly more successful in terms of how Lang utilizes his source material to retain interest. In three parts and completely for fixed media, Hearing Landscapes is a hypnotic tapestry of sonic timbres weaving together as Lang uses his scientific consultants to search for new ways to turn data from other disciplines into music.

Hearing Icescapes takes up a weighty 55 minutes of the album. Split into two parts, "Call" and "Response", Icescapes is yet another electronic music piece which spends forever doing absolutely nothing. Notably, Lang's concept of introducing live musicians attempting to imitate the deep-sea field recordings on their instruments is intriguing and I hope it continues to be polished in the future, as the trio of trumpet, flute, and violin were all noticeably out of their element. 


Check out the full album released by New Focus Recordings here.

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© 2023 Brutal New Music Reviews
originally written and published 21 January 2023

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