Driftwood

CD Details

Amazon.com

For some reason, cellists–more than any other classical instrumentalists–seem drawn to electronica. Recent CDs by Zoe Keating, Jami Sieber, Hans Christian (Rasa), and Gretchen Yanover find cellists riding electronica atmospheres. Rena Jones is a bit different from most of them. They use electronics to extend their cellos’ range and sound. Jones plants her cello next to her laptop in fractalized grooves. Driftwood is an entrancing album that’s as much about Jones’s translucent laptop compositions as her gifts on cello, guitar, violin, and clarinet. But all those instruments give her music a different feel from many laptop jockeys. Compositions like “Photosynthesis” and “Driftwood” have an almost classical flow, as her strings and clarinet articulate Arvo Pärt-like lines of liquid inevitability while rhythms pulse, shudder, and ping through the melodies. But it’s not all airy on Driftwood. “Open Me Slowly” finds her plucking a cello bass line with a funky grit you can’t get with a computer sample. Rena Jones’s soulful cello lines lend her music a somber tone and soulful beauty, which is all the more striking when cast against her chromium-plated arrangements. The combination makes Driftwood intoxicating. –John Diliberto

Product Description

Driftwood weaves together tuneful electroinca with violin and cello music to a haunting, memorable and beautiful effect. Making enchanted and edgy beat-works to disappear off into. It never tries to be musically difficult, it just slides along smooth as silk, making wonderful chill out music, that will sooth away the days stressers and strains.