Geographies & Geometries

An individual’s experiences might well be laid out like a map: some moments connected to others, some isolated, and still some yet to be explored. Composer Matthew Malsky creates an aural map of emotions on his debut Ravello release, GEOGRAPHIES & GEOMETRIES. The composer remarks, “More specifically, in composing I’m trying to adapt the sensations and the emotional responses evoked by particular places and incidents (real or imagined) into sonic form.”

In Archipelago of Regrets, each variation of the theme illustrates a part of the experience of disenchantment, ending in quiet resolution. -42.489° 108.756° (elegy), an elegy for two violas, is in the form of a palindrome in which after the climax, the piece runs backwards, undoing what came before as if prematurely ending. Escaping the Delta, inspired by blues legend Robert Johnson, who often synthesized different musical styles, reimagines a blues form blended with traditions of concert music. By using “reduced thematic material” in same river twice, Malsky intends “to capture the experience of encountering something new in a familiar experience.”