(2020) Ray Larsen - Songs to Fill the Air


Review:
If the bucolic strains of Songs to Fill the Air, the delightful fifth album from trumpeter and composer Ray Larsen, come as something of a surprise, a brief account of the events leading to its creation helps clarify why it sounds as it does. After comfortably establishing himself in the Seattle music scene with outfits such as Tyrant Lizard, Tiny Ghost, and others, Larsen began to see musical colleagues decamping for other locales, effectively ending many of his long-established projects and in turn prompting a two-year period of reflection and re-assessment. But after a 2018 Artist Residency granted him a summer month’s stay inside the 150-acre forest and botanical garden at the Bloedel Reserve, songs and lyrics of a rather different kind from those he’d previously produced materialized. He capitalized on this creative flowering in the year that followed by orchestrating and recording the material, and by bringing select musicians into the process along the way. What came out of the experience is a remarkable orchestral-folk crossover album featuring songs whose arrangements call to mind Van Dyke Parks and whose singing exudes an innocence and affability characteristic of Sufjan Stevens and Jonathan Richman. Infused with a celebratory spirit, Larsen’s earnest, cynicism-free material enchants with its luminous orchestrations and lyrical tone. As personal a creation as it is, he didn’t create it alone: augmenting him on vocals, trumpet, flugelhorn, piano, and percussion are guests who contributed woodwinds (flutes, clarinet, saxophones, EWI), strings (violin, cello), trombone, guitar, harp, bass (double, electric), drums, and voice, the latter courtesy of Nina Tan. While Larsen’s fluid horn playing does help distinguish the recording, Songs to Fill the Air is primarily about songs, not soloing. The appearance of a flute’s bird-like flutter at the start of “Hello World” immediately signifies the kind of sonic territory we’re entering, an impression reinforced by a radiant chorale of horns and acoustic guitar. A gorgeous overture, the tune flatters its creator on both songwriting and arranging grounds, the sophistication of the latter especially noteworthy. Listeners familiar with Song Cycle and SMiLE will right away think of Van Dyke Parks upon hearing Larsen’s material, but that in no way lessens the impression it makes. His singing voice appeals for the unforced naturalness of its delivery—a perfect complement, in other words, to the instrumental presentation. Speaking of which, a major selling-point is the album’s pastoral arrangements, which constantly tickle the ear with harps, woodwinds, strings, horns, and percussion. The sound design is primarily acoustic, with only “Abraxas” (featuring Sinibaldi’s EWI) and “Afterburner” including synthetic-sounding moments. Though hardly the only one, an album highlight is “Golden Tomorrow” for its alluring melodic progression as well as for the relaxed groove and instrumental embellishments that support Larsen’s vocal. It’s also worth mentioning that while his trumpet is certainly present, he treats it as an element of no greater importance than the others; “High Low,” for instance, is as much a duet setting featuring clarinet and flute as anything else. If there’s an emphasis on lullabies and dream-like reveries, it’s not unwelcome when it suits the concept in play. One production, “We’re The Music,” does rise to a boisterous, declamatory pitch, but the shift in tone is consistent with the song’s celebratory theme. Thirty-one minutes is modest by CD and album standards, but Larsen packs so much musical richness into the songwriting and arrangements that no one will come away feeling short-changed.





Tracklist:
01 - Hello World
02 - Into Our Dreams
03 - Dream Sequenza
04 - Reflecting Pool
05 - High Low
06 - First Light
07 - Golden Tomorrow
08 - Song for the Shifting
09 - We're the Music
10 - Abraxas (feat. Greg Sinibaldi)
11 - Afterburner
12 - World History


Media Report:
Genre: art pop, indie-folk, jazz
Format: FLAC
Format/Info: Free Lossless Audio Codec, 16-bit PCM
Bit rate mode: Variable
Channel(s): 2 channels
Sampling rate: 44.1 KHz
Bit depth: 16 bits