At first, I was stumped as to what to think about Raineri’s newest release, given that the liner notes don’t provide much context. After some sleuthing, it turns out this is part of Raineri’s 2025 double-bill bloodpaths and Orpheus, a collaboration with dancer and choreographer Katina Olsen, and videographer Greg Harm. However, I suspect some of these new pieces probably benefitted from the visual element of Olsen’s and Harm’s work or at least needed some further context.

Ian Whitney’s Arborescent, for instance, comes armed with a truly puzzling set of notes that seem to have something to do with Little Red Riding Hood, but also wolf attacks in France in the 17th century. Search me! Raineri seems perfectly in control, but it’s hard to shake the feeling that there’s an element missing. 

Jakob Bragg’s Fabric is in sound-effect mode with string scrapes and strikes of the piano, but the next track (Ricketson’s Seated Backwards) is also in precisely the same style. Again, gestures that don’t do much when recorded (another ominous rumble?) are presumably much more effective when paired with a dancer’s movements.

Gerard Brophy’s stuttery, chunky Toccata, though, sings out as a standalone piece, with Raineri’s tight control of the intense motoric runs throughout providing plenty of momentum. Samantha Wolf’s mercurial Life on Earth likewise works as its own piece. It’s part of a triple-composer Orpheus-retelling (alongside Natalie Nicolas’ Descent and Jane Sheldon’s Ascent: soft, uncertain, and without impatience). Wolf’s piece begins with gently pulsing octaves before skittering motifs tumble into sections that Raineri makes almost gleam. Nicolas’ Descent is lovely but the piece needed harsher edges for an underworld descent, while Jane Sheldon’s Ascent gives us some genuinely unusual textures with the use of an e-bow on piano, alongside field recordings and gently dissonant chords.

An interesting collection, but one that I think probably needed the original visual elements intact.

Listen on Apple Music

Title: Ascent
Works: Music by Gerard Brophy, Samantha Wolf, Natalie Nicolas et al.
Performer: Alex Raineri p
Label: Kammerklang