liner notes for Dana Saul - Ceiling (2019)
This is elusive music, favoring plateau over climax, intuitive drifting over logical progression, and intimacy over showmanship. The pleasure to be had here lies not so much in the fulfillment or even subversion of established convention, but rather in the opportunity to reorient our understanding as a whole, to attend to new ways of perceiving and feeling. That this is accomplished in a personal fashion, without easy nods to the supposedly avant-garde tropes of much contemporary music, speaks to the integrity of both Dana Saul’s compositions and the musicians he has selected to realize them.
This is elusive music, favoring plateau over climax, intuitive drifting over logical progression, and intimacy over showmanship. The pleasure to be had here lies not so much in the fulfillment or even subversion of established convention, but rather in the opportunity to reorient our understanding as a whole, to attend to new ways of perceiving and feeling. That this is accomplished in a personal fashion, without easy nods to the supposedly avant-garde tropes of much contemporary music, speaks to the integrity of both Dana Saul’s compositions and the musicians he has selected to realize them.
