Sousa, Tiago – “Walden Pond’s Monk” – [Immune Recordings]

Cousin Mary   12/6/2011   12-inch, A Library

Tiago Sousa is a Portuguese composer and musician – this piece was inspired by the writings of Henry David Thoreau. Here he works with a clarinetist and percussionist while he plays keyboards and uses taped material. For the most part, the piece is slow and minimal and a bit melancholy. At times I was reminded of Eric Satie and French impressionist composers; at other times the drones and muffled voices from the tape sounded like some completely electronic soundscapes.

Very lovely and soothing.

PGM: Can be faded in and out if a shorter track is required.

Gratuitous Thoreau quote: “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”