James Murray & Mike Lazarev: Suññata
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In recent years, James Murray's output has grown ever more deeply ambient in style, the development exemplified, for example, in the trilogy of releases issued with Stijn Hüwels under the Silent Vigils name. That makes this twenty-four-minute EP with Mike Lazarev (available in digital and CD formats) all the more striking for presenting a rather different view. The seven instrumentals on Suññata are often inordinately pretty, a few so rich in melody they're closer to song-styled, post-classical miniatures than ambient vignettes.

Certainly the involvement of Lazarev, a UK-based, classically trained pianist who's also appeared on 1631 Recordings, Moderna, and Eilean Rec., has much to do with why the material sounds as it does. His sensitivity to the nuances of ambient music and his delicate touch on the keyboard figure noticeably into the textural character of the EP's material. For this joint project, Murray built sound worlds around his partner's piano recordings, the result a lovely meeting-ground between piano-based composition and ambient sound design. Suññata, by the way, is a Buddhist term that relates to a purified inner state associated with non-being and the banishment of self and ego. Consistent with that, the tracks have titles similarly connected to Buddhist practice, the opening “Appanihita,” for instance, referring to a state of being that's free from desire. The title track's placement at the EP's close might be interpreted to suggest progressive advancement towards a spiritual ideal.

“Appanihita” immediately captivates when plinking piano patterns dance gracefully o'er an insistent base of shimmering flourishes and swelling atmospherics. Delicate too but pensive by comparison is “Lokuttara,” where the placing of a simple piano motif against a sombre backdrop produces a haunting evocation not worlds removed from Michael Nyman's. It's perhaps not accidental that as the recording advances, the focus shifts away from piano melodies to ambient design, a move that could be interpreted as reflecting the gradual purification of inner being. A change can definitely be detected, for example, between “Appanihita” and the fourth track “Tucchaka,” a brooding ambient-drone meditation; “Suññata¯,” tellingly, caps the release with a synthesizer-heavy, Eno-esque vignette that, if I'm not mistaken, omits acoustic piano altogether.

November 2020