Sometimes the album cover is telltale of the music that is included on the album itself. And the cover of Tancade, the album by the French cellist Gaspar Claus is quite telling about the music you can hear on the album itself.
An isolated beach, away from all the problems around us, where you can strip naked and cleanse yourself both physically and mentally.
Written down, it can sound like a schmaltzy, too melancholic concept, but Claus is up to the task to present his concept as a true cleansing process. All the problems you want to rid yourself of, at least for a moment, have to come up to the surface first so that they can be put behind at this imaginary, isolated beach.
Claus uses his instrument completely, as the cello is the only ‘thing’ creating music on the album. It is, as his press release notes, “rubbed with a bow, plucked, brushed, bumped, caressed, jostled, and transfigured (sometimes with the help of effects pedals).”
To turn such processes into meaningful music require quite a master at such a seemingly limited instrument, but Claus obviously has both the technique and imagination to pull it all off. No wonder he is a cellist in demand, having collaborated with the likes of Bryce Dessner of The National, Sufjan Stevens, and Jim O’Rourke.
All this makes Tancade quite an interesting and rewarding listen that can truly work as a cleansing process.
