Matthew Bourne - Montauk Variations - Leaf - BAY 77CDP

Matthew Bourne is found in typically excitable mode on the newly released Everybody Else But Me, alongside the saxophonist Tony Bevan.
But, with Bourne alone at the piano, Montauk Variations' meditative improvisations instead use cautiously melodic figures to trace penumbral shadows of memory and regret. Bourne's obstreperous other self surfaces on Within and Abrade, stroking the keyboard and the instrument's innards simultaneously, but Smile, written by Charlie Chaplin for Modern Times, closes a deceptively devastating collection, stripped of its cinematic sentiment into a haunting skeletal solo.

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