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。

Keaton Henson is a British folk singer who suffers from severe anxiety and as a result, can give only a few concerts a year. Along the way, he conceived the idea of trying to depict his state of mind in the orchestral medium, and Six Lethargies is the result. There are seven tracks; one of them, the Unease Concerto, has whats called a cadenza, although it precedes the main track, and its unclear what makes it a cadenza. Henson devised a large number of short chunks of music that he conceived of as having specific emotional affects and joined them together into six pieces lasting roughly ten minutes each, plus the cadenza. The effect of the short chunks of music is somewhat minimalist, but Henson doesnt stop there. He has arranged performances of the work where audiences are wired up to devices that measure their emotional responses. The whole idea definitely gets points for ambition, although that aspect is lost in this performance by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. Enough of the emotional content Henson intends is apparently communicated, judging by the commercial success of Six Lethargies, which has extended well beyond Hensons circle of fans. You, too, may enjoy the experiment.

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