Tomorrow Was The Golden Age

The Brooklyn-based ensemble known as Bing & Ruth have released a handful of gracefully meandering minimalist pieces since forming at New York's New School in 2006. The primary vehicle for the work of pianist/composer David Moore, Bing & Ruth work in a sort of classical post-rock milieu where long-form pieces tread slowly toward often dramatic crescendos over a variety of pastoral landscapes. Their expansive debut album, 2010's City Lake, boasted an 11-piece outfit that included strings, woodwinds, vocals, percussion, lap steel, and even a tape delay operator complementing Moore's gentle piano work. For their follow-up, Tomorrow Was the Golden Age, Moore has trimmed the group down to a more chamber-like seven-piece core that features a pair of clarinetists, a pair of bassists, cello, and tape delay intertwining with his bucolic piano shifts. However, their diminished size has little effect on Bing & Ruth's capacity for creating wonder and drama. As the dreamy twinkling of pieces like "TWTGA" and "Police Police Police Police Police" shimmer through the speakers you can almost see time-lapse images of cloud shadows crawling across a plain and suns rising and setting in tranquil seven-minute bursts. Moods are created and supported with great care and the album's overall tone hovers between patient optimism and mystical awe with subtle tugs that suggest darkness rather than insert it. The low dangerous rumble of "The Towns We Love Is Our Town" and the wistful dissonance in "Reflector" are just two more strands in Moore's colorful loom, and he weaves them in with much regard to the album's overall sonic picture. Casual listeners may find this to merely be a pleasant and inviting ambient work, but a lot of love went into these nine pieces and repeated spins will reveal great depth and many layers to get lost in. ~ Timothy Monger