Likely best known as half of Goldfrapp, Will Gregory has amassed a considerable list of credits since the early 1980s. Although extant since 2005, the Will Gregory Moog Ensemble is just now entering the man’s proper discography with Heat Ray – The Archimedes Project, which is due June 14 on LP, CD, and digital from Mute Records. Recorded with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, the work’s ambitiousness, fitting for its inspiration, avoids any nagging retro middle-of the-road-isms while embracing the recognizable sound of Moog synths in their numerous makes and models.
Moog synthesizers….people love to play them! That includes Graham Fitkin, Hazel Mills, Vyvyan Hope-Scott, Ross Hughes, Daniel Moore, Hinako Omori, Adrian Utley, Eddie Parker, John Baggott, and Simon Haram, all members of the ensemble given consideration here, and of course, Will Gregory. Minimoog is the dominant model (ten are utilized for this album), though Fitkin plays a Moog Voyager and Moore is credited with a Moog Sub 37.
The non-Moog analogue synths include Mills playing a Prophet 6, Omori a Prophet 8 and OB6, Parker a Roland JX-3P, Hughes a Roland Promars Compuphonic MRS-2, and Ruth Wall a Korg 700s. In addition to synths, Gregory plays Mellotron, Hughes plays flute and bass clarinet, Haram blows a EWI (yes, technically a synth), and Harriet Riley handles marimba, snare, and bass drum.
The breadth of instrumentation here is appropriate for the orchestral scope of Gregory’s compositional tribute of the third century BC Greek mathematician, though the program doesn’t open with grand classical sweep. Instead, and naturally given the ensemble’s concept, “Young Archimedes” travels smack dab into the Moog zone, and with impressive results.
The Ensemble pulls off a slick trick of embracing prototypical Moog sensibilities without succumbing to cheese, as the glistening, buoyant cascades recall an earlier era but eschew cliché. There are a few flashes that suggest the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, but these are insinuations rather than blatant style cops. Just as frequently, and in no small part due to Hughes’ bass clarinet, there are likenesses to Moondog. In “Law of the Lever,” the Ensemble manages to blend aspects of Delia Derbyshire and Louis Hardin to superb effect.
The track titles establish a linear (but not rigid) biographical trajectory, and there are pieces, especially when the orchestra’s wholly up front, e.g. “Circles, Spirals and Pi,” that do connect like excerpts from a score to a film about the life of Archimedes. But notably not an approximation of a film score, but the real deal, as Gregory has experience in the field; his score with the Ensemble’s Utley (also a member of Portishead) for Carl Theodor Dryer’s silent masterpiece The Passion of Joan of Arc is a major achievement.
But “The Claw,” with the orchestra firing on full cylinders, is like a night at the symphony, and again, the unfettered experience, as the orchestra isn’t half-stepping. “Archimedes’ Screw” shift gears into a more contemporary compositional setting, and “Heat Ray” is downright abstract (and with a touch of Modernist classical).
“The Sand Reckoner” and closer “Archimedes’ Legacy” both hit a sweet spot of mingled Mooginess and bold orchestral gestures. Along with the robust compositions and the Ensemble’s expert play, one of Heat Ray – The Archimedes Project’s best qualities is how it communicates that Gregory and the group would go down gangbusters in a performance setting. An extensive tour in collaboration with city orchestras would be fantastic.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
A-
