Paul Beauchamp
Grey Mornings

Another disc released this year by the Treviso-based label Boring Machines, and like all their records, it features content born from experimentation in both musical and conceptual fields.

The artist in question this time is Paul Beauchamp, simply a namesake of the French Jesuit theologian and someone who was born and raised in North Carolina, USA, and has been living in Turin for several years.

Already active over time under various monikers and involved in projects like Blind Cave Salamander, Almagest!, Space Aliens From Outer Space, he recently released a disc with Paolo Spaccamonti and last March his second LP titled 'Grey Mornings'.

It must be said that even without being a particularly well-known name in mainstream music circles, his previous LP, 'Pondfire', received favorable reviews from critics, and deservedly so. If we talk about field recordings, ambient, and minimal electronics, and if you are interested in these types of sounds, it would objectively be a shame to miss out on his work, especially this latest album.

Recorded with the collaboration of Julia Kent (!), the disc is an ecstatic and sooty proposition, rarefied like things seen through a thick layer of mist in soundscapes where the artist draws a kind of parallel between the places where he was born and raised and the Piedmont environment and the city of Turin where he has now settled permanently.

Characteristic and worth mentioning is the use of a very particular instrument, the Appalachian dulcimer, a four-string instrument typical of those regions, whose origins can be traced back to the settlements of Scottish immigrants in those areas at the beginning of the nineteenth century (even though, in practice, the instrument was completely 'new', as there are no prior records of its use in Scotland or Ireland).

Evocative like the ambient sessions of certain sci-fi soundtracks, it ideally looks up to a certain Jean-Michel Jarre but, being aware of having a more limited scope than the giant French composer, narrows its horizons and focuses on a specific imagery of his own, ultimately achieving a beautiful record that can be quite appealing, especially if these droning sessions are generally to your liking.