Six Lethargies

ビジュアル・アーティストにして、詩人、幻想的な才人がMercury KXより発信!
《キートン・ヘンソン～6つの倦怠》

ロンドンをベースに活動するビジュアル・アーティスト、シンガーソングライター、そして詩人でもあるキートン・ヘンソンがMercury KXより不思議なアルバムをリリース。

A reclusive musician due to openly discussed chronic anxiety that extends to stage fright, singer/songwriter Keaton Henson rarely performed publicly during his first six album cycles, and when he did, it was under controlled circumstances. His seventh album explores his experiences with anxiety and depression while eradicating the performance expectation -- he doesnt play on it. An instrumental work for string orchestra, Six Lethargies had its world premiere in London by the Britten Sinfonia in 2018. Arriving a year later and featuring the Liverpool Philharmonic, the recording is Hensons first for emerging Decca post-classical imprint Mercury KX. He had already ventured into that territory before with 2014s Romantic Works, an instrumental album with cellist Ren Ford incorporating found objects. With a playing time of a little over an hour, the more expansive, less melodic Six Lethargies is divided into six parts, beginning with Initium. Quiet and atmospheric, the track opens with a single bowed note, then silence before the same note is repeated with an accompanying interval, initiating a slow build that plays out over most of its nine and a half minutes. With tension created by passing dissonance and its minor-key center, it does incorporate melodic motifs along the way, eventually climaxing near the eight-minute mark. Instruments then drop out one by one as the piece relaxes into silence once again. Much of the poignant Lethargies is similarly hypnotic and elongated, as opposed to staccato or abrupt, with the churning dissonance of Trauma/In Chao and the frenetic melodicism of Unease Concerto providing notable contrasts. The final track is titled Breathing Out and ends accordingly. For its live premiere, Six Lethargies was presented as a multi-sensory piece in which audience members were monitored for anxiety levels that were reflected in the real-time lighting of the show. It came advertised with the question: If I write how it feels to me, will it make you feel the same? ~ Marcy Donelson