Hovering between abstraction and narrative comprehensibility; these are the qualities that make the 49 minutes of Pilgrim such a pleasurably uncanny experience.

The Wire

The latest otherworldly communiqué from Anglesey is sub-titled ‘A Prelude to Pilgrim’s Progress’. Does this mean that Graham Bowers has begun another large-scale part-work to follow the trilogy comprising Of Mary’s Blood, Transgression, and Eternal Ghosts? I hope so, for each new recording confirms the distinctiveness of Bowers’ musical vision.

Crucially, he uses the studio as a compositional medium, processing instrumental source materials generated by a community of musicians, who are evidently content that their efforts should be transformed beyond recognition. Into that transmogrified sonic environment, Bowers introduces, in unprocessed form, eminently familiar elements. In its context, a snippet of the consoling standard ‘Blue Skies’ sounds inexplicably unsettling. The tinny clangour of an upright piano, or the desiccated rattling of a snare drum, is made strange.

As a painter, Bowers understands well the workings of perspective, and his most successful musical effects follow from skilled manipulation of acoustic zones of recession. His utilisation of the middle distance is especially striking. There, animated activity assumes a blurred form, discernible yet indistinct. Deciphering the event becomes a compulsive challenge, as acoustic phenomena simultaneously proclaim their identity and deny it. Listeners aware of his previous work will anticipate the metaphysical figures adorning the cover. Hovering between abstraction and narrative comprehensibility, they illustrate perfectly the qualities that make the 49 minutes of Pilgrim such a pleasurably uncanny experience.

Julian Cowley