Mico Nonet: The Marmalade Balloon
Mico Nonet

Mico Nonet: Majola Pass / Hammock
Mico Nonet

Mico Nonet's The Marmalade Balloon offers an engrossing fusion of ambient and classical styles. The group's instrumentation—synthesizer, cello, viola, oboe and French horn—is itself distinctive but so too is the material. Predominantly elegiac in tone, the thirty-seven minute album unfolds like an extended suite with one melancholic piece flowing into the next. At times, the viola, cello, and synthesizer form the backbone, with the French horn and oboe weaving in counterpoint over top. Elsewhere, the clear, bird-like cry of the oboe and the mournful sigh of the viola are prominent while the muffled tone of the French horn merges with ambient electronic atmospheres and the low groan of the cello. In short, the “ambient chamber” outfit wisely avoids having its approach settle into a predictable format and instead lets the individual voices advance and recede as necessary. The viola's high-pitched whisper is especially lovely in “Cranes” while the oboe is alternately querulous in “Kaika” and spirited in “Paper Sailboat.” Throughout the succinct collection, the group's sinuous compositional style remains understated yet also quietly intoxicating. Mico Nonet is no amateur outfit either, with synthesizer player and producer Joshua Lee Kramer joined by members of the Berlin Philharmonic (violist Carrie Dennis), Philadelphia Orchestra (cellist Efe Baltacigil), Richmond Symphony (French horn player Paul Lafollette), and Baltimore Symphony (oboist Katherine Needleman). Completists may want to add the lovely seven-inch clear vinyl disc that features two album tracks from the release.

March 2008