| In 2006, Scott Walker was commissioned to score a modern dance piece for CandoCo, a dance troupe made up of both able-bodied and disabled dancers. What resulted is a 25 minute avant-garde piece of modern classical music in four movements. And Who Shall Go To The Ball? And What Shall Go To The Ball? is a departure from last year’s The Drift. Both works are engulfed in a foreboding darkness, but with this newer release, Scott Walker’s unmistakable voice is completely absent.
The “1st Movement” is full of emptiness. A near silence is stabbed by an unearthly sound, seemingly random until the first sounds of the strings begin. Almost like a tuning session, the musician is preparing his vehicle for the journey through the next three movements. “2nd Movement” is where the music really begins. The strings are much more prominent and the horns start to wail. There is an almost martial drumming intermittently through this track that helps build the tension.
The “3rd Movement” returns to the quietness of “1st Movement”, but there is sadness now present. There is a longing that comes off of his bow that is thrown into the screams of a decades old Suspense film’s soundtrack.
During the strongest track on the album, “4th Movement”, there is a moment of brilliance where everything swirls together in a chaotic symphony. Like a cleansing ritual a bell is rung repeatedly, beating down the demonic orchestra.
Like a lot of Scott Walker’s works, And Who Shall Go To The Ball? And What Shall Go To The Ball?, is probably not for everyone. I am not even sure is it’s for a lot of Walker’s existing fans. It is missing the one key element that really brands a Scott Walker song as such – his voice. Even still it is a strong work that bears Walker’s signature in the sounds and atmosphere we have come to know in his recent work from the last decade or so. 4AD did a good job with this limited release, the packaging is beautiful, and once these are gone they will be gone for good, so if you are interested in And Who Shall Go To The Ball? And What Shall Go To The Ball? the time to buy it is now.
More information about the project can be found here: http://www.andwhoshallgo.com/ Reviewed
by: Tom Gilbert
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