Moteer
2007
Shed
About This Album
Having performed with the Boats, Chris Stewart veers into a solo tack with Need More Sources, a contemplative instrumental act that creates a delicate series of songs on the debut album Shed. Nearly everything about the release emphasizes calm understatement -- even the dramatic imagery of what appears to be angels fighting on the front cover is partially obscured by layers of paper and color -- and from the start, with the lengthy, slowly unfolding "Morning," tones and a basic core melody added to later by further textures and what sounds like a violin, that atmosphere is established and maintained. Though on his own, Stewart does a very good job at making a one-man-band; songs like "Storm," with its steady, subtle drumming, and the equally striking "Valley," where the beats build up into a near wallop as keyboards and strings interweave and rise, feel like full live performances done very well indeed. A good majority of the tracks are piano-led, and comparisons to a variety of modern classical and ambient performers are understandable, given Stewart's embrace of the style if not always of the particular songwriting approach -- if anything some pieces suggest the experiments on the instrument that Vini Reilly has occasionally recorded, while others, such as "Autumn," parallel some of the work of Piano Magic at their most serene and elegiac. Certainly "Rain" seems to define that latter term, at once a beautiful celebration and a mournful reflection in its combination of bowed and plucked strings (or samples thereof). Touches from more recent developments are subtle but present -- the jittery, shifting crackle of percussion on "Snow" and toward the end of "Spring" isn't necessarily glitch but isn't too far removed, either. ~ Ned Raggett, All Music Guide
Track List (try tracks 1,2,3,4,5,6 and 9)

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