Once more, with Meditation
It’s very safe to say, and we say it proudly, our bias of affection towards pianist Belle Chen at Flush. She completely captivated us with the release of her recent album Ravel in The Forest (reviewed here), then proceeded to blow our minds with the subsequent live performance (reviewed here), where could she possibly go next?
Whilst it’s understandable, artists are often prone to dramatically reinventing themselves and embracing radical change within their creative journey. That’s completely apt at times but not always welcome, and can be jarring given creativity has far more potholes than pristine paths. Change is good, but sometimes slower is better, iterations, adaptation, closer to evolutions rather than revolutions. That way involves and allows reflections, nurturing the finest aspects, cultivating the finer attributes, colours, senses and attractions.
Effectively it’s an organic growth.
And so to Ravel in the Forest (Meditative Reworks), a further unfurling and gentle blossoming of Belle Chen’s much loved album, that had rightly reached #7 in the UK’s Official Classical Chart. Effectively taking a cutting off the original, to be nourished and spread by others.
Suffice to say, it is gorgeous. We really could end the review there, but Belle’s pieces are all about journeys, and an active attention to those fleeting moments. The tantalising sensation of movement by us, or around us, gossamer notes and sounds defying our perceptions, seemingly giddily ignoring physics to lift us into alternative dimensions, warping the frequencies of time and comprehensions, curating surreal worlds of new colours and textures, that are simultaneously inspiring, comforting and unquantifiable, where that very inability to define just raises the transcendental awe of it all, it simply becomes sound magic.
Meditative Reworks is a a seven track EP including a previously unreleased Closer to Rain that while it shares the same aural flora as the other original album tracks, does feel darker in tone, observing a coming torrent, as opposed to the rays of sunshine cutting through at the end of a storm.
The reworkings of the other tracks bring us to more tonally familiar lands, planets, worlds, but through the prism and storytelling of guest producers and composers (far too many to mention). This is where the pieces truly flex, and constrict with wondrous breaths of individual perceptions. Each artist focusing on the frequencies, colours and ingredients they are uniquely attracted to in the originals, honing in, adjusting the hues and saturations, splicing plants and sounds together, creating entirely new species to drench all our senses in.
And once again, it is beautiful.
I’d mentioned in previous writing about Belle’s all encompassing craft, from ideas dreamt of and faithfully realised, right through to the quality of production and the virtually haptic experience the listener has at a live performance due to the god like sound systems she expects at her shows.
The same levels shine on this Ep, in that the better system you employ to listen to it, the further you will fly. With respective guest artists simplifying or distilling works, that simplification contradictorily expands the piece, there is indeed magic, or technological divinity at play here.
Having the added knowledge of the rapturous experience of hearing the original album live, I can to an extent conjure a sense of what these reworkings can manifest when live, and thankfully that is a distinct possibility as Belle is headlining the EFG London Jazz Festival at London’s EartH Theatre on 18th November 2024. She will be performing Ravel in the Forest with Engines Orchestra Strings, presented in Hyperreal Live Immersive audio, the very same L-Acoustics group that provided the sound at the Stone Nest performance that readjusted my understanding of what sound can do.
Again, as mentioned in previous reviews, that seamlessly blending of art, humanity, empathy and technology truly is a thing of wonder and beauty. Something that is much needed in today’s society. What a time to be alive.
9/10
Ravel in the Forest (Meditative Reworks) by Belle Chen is out now through Platoon. More information can be found at www.bellechen.com. Tickets for the Belle’s London Jazz Festival performance can be found at https://efglondonjazzfestival.org.uk/events/belle-chen-with-engines-orchestra-strings-ravel-in-the-forest-live-immersive