11. Nico MuhlySpeaks Volumes
You can loosely say Speaks Volumes is classical because they’re using classical instruments and they’re playing composed songs. Most classical music, and I say classical with inverted commas, that I’ve heard like this before sounded just like there was a standard, ‘sonic aesthetic’ that had to be maintained and I just wasn’t into it that much. Hearing Nico Muhly opened a whole new door to me. I started to ask myself, ‘Do I like the template jazz has presented me? Do I like the standard, the norm?’ Most I guess, ‘jazz’ albums have a certain aesthetic – an idea of what the sound of the album is supposed to be. Most artists will then just conform to the zeitgeist.This album made me consider what the zeitgeist is that I’ve inhabited, because what he’s doing is so different to anything else I’ve ever heard in the classical genre.
