Core Memory Unwound

Core Memory Unwound is Slow Six leader Chris Tignor's debut solo album. This CD features his compositional skills, his artistry as a sound organizer, and his talent as a software programmer. The album consists of three acoustic compositions for piano and violin ("Last Thought at Night" and "Meeting in a Colored Shadow, Pts. 1 & 2") interspersed with three live remixes produced by Tignor using his own software instruments ("Last Nights on Eagle Street," "Left in Fragments," and the title track). The acoustic pieces, performed by pianist Margaret Kampmeier and violinist Colin Jacobsen, are very quiet and intimate affairs, with soft, spaced notes layered in a semi-minimalistic fashion akin to the Cold Blue label's stable of composers (Peter Garland, John Luther Adams, Steve Peters, etc.). The electronic pieces develop the material in interesting ways, producing a kind of "contemporary ambient" form of music, very lulling. The album concludes with the two-part "Cathedral," where both strands are joined in a piece for piano and violin with live electronics, Tignor sampling and transforming input captured from inside the piano. That last piece has strong Morton Feldman overtones, both in pace and style. Some of the tracks have been stretched longer than necessary, but overall, Core Memory Unwound is a gorgeous album with a well-thought concept — memory, both human and electronic. Tignor is even credited for playing "memory machines" instead of samplers or computers. ~ François Couture, Rovi