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Review: 'SPRINGER, MARK'
'Menu 2'   

-  Label: 'Exit'
-  Genre: 'Ambient' -  Release Date: '30th September 2016'-  Catalogue No: 'exit015'

Our Rating:
Mark Springer is a virtuoso pianist who spent part of his teenage years with Rip Rig + Panic, the ragged band of Bristolian bohemians who in true cult fashion won many plaudits but sold relatively few records.

After going solo he released three solo albums, the last of which was Menu on Virgin Records in 1991.

Now, 25 years later , and on his own label, we get a follow up comprising material recorded at the same sessions - nine new pieces and four alternate takes played on grand piano.

Part composed, part improvised, there is both an airiness and a stillness to his tunes which fluidly bridge the genres of jazz and modern classical.

The moods swing from the restless edginess of a track like Side Jump to the comparative calm of Into The Light Air Surrounded and Questions Counterpoint (Homage to Cherry).

A second CD contains half an hour of new material where Springer is accompanied by The Lochrian String Quartet.

These instrumental pieces are inspired by the Castello de Potentino vineyard in Tuscany and comprise five movements charting the growth cycle of grapevines from seed to harvesting.

Springer says he wanted to "capture the spontaneous feeling of improvised music" and this accounts to the free-flowing ambience albeit framed within concise melodic compositions that sound like joy contained rather than unbound.

Mark Springer's website
  author: Martin Raybould

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SPRINGER, MARK - Menu 2