“I think the best kind of award is the one you can’t give. It’s the one that you get from being intimate with music. The award comes when you listen and the hair on the back of your neck stands up, your skin shivers with ecstasy, you cry because there can’t be anything more beautiful than this right now. Anyone who can hear is capable of winning that award, all they have to do is listen.”
What you can also hear is Daniel Susnjar’s easy dexterity and his knack of playing right inside the music.
‘… a mood of striking conviviality.’
U.nlock is interesting instrumentally because of the absence of chordal instruments. ‘We also realised at some point that neither of the melodic instruments are of a fixed pitch…’
Oehlers’ original compositions call to mind late night smoky jazz sounds, with focus on sultry ballads, forthright melody and Coltrane-esque moments.
“The chromatic scale is not the easiest thing to do on a harp.”
It is a testament to Winkelman’s vision for these pieces that stride, montunos and various rhythmic tangents can be found sitting side-by-side in a way which only enhances, rather than confuses, the narrative they belong to. At the same time, the dynamic interplay and symbiosis between Winkelman, Anning and Vanderwal allows for their flawless execution.
