Reviews

Russell Hartenberger, Professor Emeritus and former Dean of the Faculty of Music, University of Toronto. Member of both the percussion group Nexus and Steve Reich & Musicians since 1971.

When I attend concerts or listen to percussion music, I am attentive to the touch of the performers as they play their instruments. Their touch is an extension of their personalities, and my interest in their performance is greatly affected by the sounds they create.  Abby Fisher and Matthew Lau, in their debut album Extension of a Dream, perform on all their instruments with care and thoughtfulness, never overplay, and display a sensitivity to touch that makes for an enjoyable audio and visual experience.

As I watch their performances on YouTube, I am reminded of Dan Hinger’s descriptions of “time and motion” and how movements of the player should be timed so that each motion should be in a time that relates to both the instrument struck and the next attack. By playing with this sense of time, players can achieve a sense of line by internalizing a conscious awareness of hand motions. I don’t know if Abby and Matthew have thought about this concept specifically, but they certainly demonstrate it with their playing.

A satisfying aspect of the Fisher/Lau Project recording is the complementary styles of performance by both players. This is particularly obvious in Yi: Marimba Four Hands by Tona Scherchen Hsiao. Their interplay gives the sense that one person is creating all the sounds. In fact, all the instruments used on the recording are played with a similarity of touch and feel that gives a sense of equanimity. All the works on the album are of an expressive genre that fits well, one after the other. In the introduction to their website, Abby and Matthew state that the F/L Project was formed to promote “the contemporary and avant garde aesthetic with clarity and approachability.” They are off to an excellent start with this album.

Julie Spencer, Internationally known American composer, musician, and visual artist.

Elan is not something you can put into the music. It exists effortlessly and flows through a performance because of an imperceptible lightness that comes from so much depth - the kind of depth that one finds in this offering by Fisher and Lau.There is a certain intonation of spirits that happens sometimes in a moment of a performance or in several pieces of a wonderful concert, and here in the debut Fisher/Lau Project album, Extension of a Dream, throughout the whole magical recording. These two, Fisher and Lau, are like two hands of the same performer, creating not just stunning and seamless textures, landscapes of images that are at once captivating and then dissolve into intriguing questions and experiences that surprise and drift off, for instance in the exquisite interpretation of the Manoury. The lovely simplicity of the vignettes in the Singleton invites free associations that float comfortably in and out, because of the clarity of the performance, not overplayed, just presented, as its own world, the way Fisher and Lau play, with complete certainty of every sound and gesture.  The worlds that are presented in this fabulous set of intimate and understated pieces that are in themselves a fascinating overview of late 20th C. reflective chamber percussion writing.  With an underpinning ethos of enormous attention to audible and inaudible detail, their embodiment, for example of the soul of Andersson's portrait of feelings of isolation we all experience, brought to light through the example of someone who has a different public personna is brilliant and heart wrenching. The album reaches out somehow with something I can't put my finger on, and touches me deeply. I suppose the intonation of these two performers has something to do with the resonance this music creates within my spirit.