‘Omni-Gatherum,’ the album from Sylvan Tirelle, is as wide as it is deep. An expanse of sound, a mountainous range of jazz funk fuzed instrumental music that sets the wick of life alight. There, in the dark gloom of the ordinary, a speaker sits. When it plays music that is what it does. It plays voices and tunes, and some dance and some listen, most ignore it. When this little speaker plays Sylvan Tirelle’s ‘Omni-Gatherum’ however, it is transformed. It becomes, in one fluid motion: a firebird stood atop the frozen shale, a young child sprinting up the hill, a car thrashing through the dust, a planet spinning in isolation. The speaker takes on the forms of the music, gathered from your imagination, made real by the masterful skills of Sylvan Tirelle.
Each song on the album takes pinches from another. They talk to one another when we aren’t there, I’m sure of it. The flow of each song is bitten by the crack of a drum kit, the flow of a bass line, the high drop of the middle melody. There is a story to each one. A journey it takes to become the form you wish it to be. For me, ‘Scrumbles,’ the opening track, was perfectly tuned to send me into a 50s bar; I see a stranger, I follow him down misty streets. Each track has instruments that suit the tone better than the last. Here, bells and bass work together under swishing percussion to find the brass melody at the end of the rainbow that acts as the close, or is it the beginning? ‘pp500’ flows with the staggering pace that can only come from tired eyes. The music builds with layers of percussion, drum patterns that evolve and grow wild — like the shifting forms in a kaleidoscope. The music runs away from you and you catch it. Cat and mouse you go, running around the streets, splashing through gutters, all to the tap of a hi-hat.
Instrumentals build in places that lyrical music cannot. There seems to be so much more space available to the artist in an instrumental form. There is room for pause, for reflection; room to lead an idea to its completion. Room to show it shining as it flies, and then dashed black upon the jagged rocks below. Songs like ‘Squidgeman,’ to me, flow like tales. They spin up, they soar, they spin down. And this is a great thing. It’s music and show. You can paint onto the instrumental thespians who lay out your imaginings. They thrust here, dance there, love then and die with who? There is so much possibility, and it is only possible because of the immaculate music.
Sylvan Tirelle has created a flying, calling, whimsical collection of instrumental tracks that cater to the modern age. They are fast when they wish to be, slow when they need to be, and they are always played to perfection. The stops, the starts, the melodic breakdowns into a chorus, the height of it all. ‘Omni-Gatherum’ left me smiling and breathless. A work of art in its favourite space. A truly great album meant to be enjoyed. Brilliant.
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