Music for Music: Isabelle Lewis: Greetings

Isabelle Lewis: Greetings

By Dan Ursini
©2024

There is the mundane eeriness of sour horror movie soundtracks. In deep contrast is the musical expression of a bedrock eeriness in the nature of life, which can be the sound of a strangely configured existence; and that is surely the case with Isabelle Lewis: Greetings. This is a new album by three musical adventurers, working together for the first time. They bring the Isabelle Lewis persona truly alive—though she is not a human being, per se, but a deeply melancholy consciousness that fills the music of the album named for her:

Her creators include the Icelandic composer, musician, producer, and engineer Valgeir Sigurdsson. His early years included a lengthy tenure collaborating with the Icelandic singer songwriter Björk. His solo albums have won international acclaim. Isabelle Lewis- Greetings was recorded at The Greenhouse, a studio Valgeir founded in Reykjavik, Iceland.

On this album, many voices are heard, but there is only one vocalist: Benjamin Abel Meirhaeghe, a self-taught countertenor and director of operatic productions. His exceptional range as a singer is matched by the scope of tenderness and compassion of his delivery in various personas. Benjamin explains, “Valgeir and I started first at the invitation of B-Classic.” That is a concert organizer that combines classical music and fresh musical contexts.

He continued, “We asked Elisabeth to join us and she helped create and determine Isabelle’s sound.” Brussels-based violinist Elisabeth Klinck is a musician of considerable daring and vision, fully at ease playing both composed and improvised music in challenging electroacoustic situations. She recently released her first solo album, Picture a Frame.

The three musicians adopted Isabelle Lewis as their group name. For ten intense days in Iceland, they created five new songs which were added to a concert’s worth of material created earlier.Valgeir finished each composition in the studio. The nine songs on this 40+ minute album do not tell the story of Isabelle Lewis; rather, they convey the governing impulses of her mind as she navigates life. Fear and pain provide a searing emotional content to the opening song, “Mother, Shelter Me.”

The structure of this song is a familiar one, and the melody is simple. But within those limits, a work of unsettling brilliance emerges. Both here and throughout, Benjamin provides a vocal of remarkable musicality and urgency. Elisabeth’s evocative violin playing perfectly conveys the tone of sad vulnerability. Valgeir, through his arranging and playing, creates resonant, unsettling atmospherics that obliquely shift from one moment to the next. A pattern of otherworldly sonic agitation, alternating between foreground and background, continues the whole length of the album.

The mood of the songs shifts from dread and anxiety to candid, quiet joy when the settings move toward the natural world. “Before Noon” features a serpentine melody, and Benjamin provides a gentle, fully centered vocal. The song is framed within intriguing sonic clusters—heavily processed—inspired by birdcalls.

“Fisherman” demonstrates the exceptional range of Valgeir’s sonic expertise. He starts with a field recording of a shoreline morning while a fishing boat moves through the water. To that, he integrates—at various points—occasional piano chords; Elisabeth’s expressive violin; a string section; a spoken word text about an old fisherman; and, later, dark clouds of ambient sound. The whole of it coheres with grace.

A highlight of the album is a new musical setting for the lyrics of  “O Solitude” by Henry Purcell, the great English Baroque-era composer. The vocal is truly rapturous; there is a marvelous clarity to the sound; and the new musical setting is spare yet dignified and stately. The video, evoking a midnight forest snowstorm, is mesmerizing.

“Not the Water, Air, or the Dirt” is filled with intriguing multi-tracked solos by Elisabeth. The usual expectation about violin music is that it sounds sweet, plays fast, and sparkles with the best of intentions. Yet, Elisabeth goes her own way. She cultivates a lean honest style that is ideal for the angular, reverberant tones essential to her music. As her playing on this track and elsewhere demonstrates, she often bases her phrasing on the speech rhythms of sorrow and regret. It really delivers.

The next composition, “Dust That Floats,” continues the same mood. But suddenly, there is a shift to another melody: delightfully animated and intensely rhythmic. A beautiful, layered arrangement quickly builds around it; then all dissolves. How or why it shows up where it does is sweetly inexplicable. It is like one of those elusive melodies that occasionally show up in our dreams. Actually, since this album is intended as a portrait of a consciousness, there may be some sense to that.

Isabelle Lewis- Greetings is a hugely successful project by a configuration of deeply talented individuals. If it turns out to be a one-off, it is hugely satisfying. But here’s hoping more follows. This trio shows immense promise.

Dan Ursini and his wife Valerie live in Oak Park, Illinois. Over the years he has done many kinds of writing. Ursini served as the first resident playwright for the Steppenwolf Theatre of Chicago (1978-1983); he worked for ten years as a Contributing Editor for Puerto Del Sol magazine; he wrote performance art pieces presented at  Chicago venues as Club Lower Links and Club Dreamerz. Ursini wrote radio theatre presented on NPR in the early 1990s. Throughout all this, he has worked full-time at the Law Library at DePaul University where for a decade he also wrote articles for Dialogue, the DePaul law school’s alumni publication. In addition, he was active for some years as a bass guitarist in various Chicago blues/gospel/funk/lounge configurations. Currently Ursini is working on his latest novel. A play he wrote with Robert Rothman, A Mensch Among Men, a fictionalized account of real-life Jewish Chicago-area gangsters, has had two staged readings in Chicago. Dan can be reached at: danursini@aol.com