A Journey Down The Well releases a new four song EP ("How Little Can Be The Orchestra") revealing their impulsive, unusual, minimalist approach to classical music. This is their first entirely instrumental release, as well as the first release of A Journey Down The Well as a duo.
A Journey Down The Well was founded in 2006 by musicians from Turkey (Taner) and Sweden (Anna and Martin). In 2010, after releasing two albums (The Funeral Album - 2007 and Sorry Monsters, I Have To Grow – 2009) the Swedish wing left the band citing the difficulty in traveling between the two countries. Taner Torun (the only founding member remaining in the band as well as the owner of Fluttery Records) has moved the project to his hometown and partnered with Ipek Zeynep Kadioglu (cellist, Mimar Sinan Conservatory & Manchester University School of Music and Drama graduate).
The new compositions contains rich string pieces ("How"), beautiful piano-violin-cello arrangements ("Little"), ambient structures created through delay manipulations ("Can Be") and processed cellos made to sound like a ship's foghorn (end of "The Orchestra").
Taner Torun says "The EP is called How Little Can Be The Orchestra and we have reasons for this. First of all, we recorded it just two people and it explains about minimalist nature of our music. Also, there is still sadness but also a gleam of hope. All four songs are about how little things have importance and make people happy with their existence like birds, kittens, children and toy instruments."
How Little Can Be Orchestra also contains various field recordings alongside the music. Cars pass by on the street and a little girl yells at them from the window (02), fans celebrate their victory (03), newborn kittens sing along with other animals and it becomes a choir (04). Torun says "They are not spices to make the compositions colorful. They are the core elements of the compositions just like piano, violin and cello."
The EP has received good reviews from other modern classical, post-rock and ambient musicians:
Gonçalo Pereira / Diamond Gloss, How Constellations Shine
"Just a few words about this recording. How Little Can Be The Orchestra is just a wonderful piece of music. Simple pleasures are the best pleasures, and this music is a simple pleasure. It´s hard to write about good music. It´s hard to write about such a good music like this. How beautiful can be a orchestra? So, just put your ears over this four songs and here is your answer. Excellent work, simply made. "
Aviv Cohn / The Widest Smiling Faces
"How Little Can Be The Orchestra, the new EP from A Journey Down the Well combines provocative melodies and textures with a natural and minimal sound palette. The first track, "How" brimming with lovely tones and compelling harmonies, is a particular standout. Later pieces contrast captured field recordings with melodic compositions, a wonderful example being "Little" which begins by relaying sounds of a port or perhaps a commercial dock (or something similar). As the track progresses, string swells create the imagery of deep ocean waves, presenting a fascinating juxtaposition of captured sounds with composed imagery. "How Little Can Be the Orchestra" is full of imaginative little ideas like this, and is a fantastic EP for anyone who enjoys creativity and imagery in their music."
Ludovico Lamarra / En Plein Air
"A Journey Down The Well produce a small and precious EP, abandoning electronic experiments of the first work, with the will to embrace the essence of the music, in four stylish and minimal tracks."
Jun Minowa / Yawning, Gargle
"As if every single note carries a meaning, as if trying to read between the silence, I swim deep in the sea of their music. "How Little Can Be The Orchestra" is a great EP with fantastic composition and emotional sound. Ever since I knew Fluttery Records, I could have found some real music that touch my heart and they are surely one of them. Now it's time for you to discover A Journey Down The Well."
Jan Hammer / Draff Krimmy
"I hear the first sounds of the new A Journey Down The Well. A feeling of joy is flowing through me. That joy carries with it a feeling of sadness, no destructive sorrow but a self-sufficient melancholy. This feeling is good, freedom and fear, pleasure and pain. The music makes me enjoy the moment, authentic and pure. I re-discover the feeling I had when listening to the first A Silver Mt Zion albums. It is only the moment and my experience of it. I am right here now. The orchestra is little, but the mood it leaves behind is enormous. And it grows every time I listen to it."
--
Progressive Rock & Progressive Metal - E-Zine
