Malcolm Galloway 2024
Unsealing microcosms of multicellular structures that live and breathe, melodically minded Londoner seeks thrills in the bland scheme of things.
Metazoa
Some progressive players use orchestras of various sizes to expands their instrumental palette; others may not have such means at their disposal and still they write symphonic pieces with apparent ease. Belonging to the latter cohort, Malcolm Galloway is mostly known as one of the driving wheels of HATS OFF GENTLEMEN IT’S ADEQUATE whose rock-rooted experiments feel like exercises in free will, but it’s the British guitarist’s solo path which eventually exposed him as one of the most interesting contemporary composers of what must be termed as classical music even if the arrangements this master of carefully crafted sonics got stuck with – purely for financial reasons – are electronic. Not that they sound as such over the main course of the follow-up to "Wasp 76b" – concocted at the onset of pandemic – because on “Metazoa” lush and emotional, yet serious and intense, passages reign supreme.
As the tripartite titular epic – scattered across the record’s length and interspersed with shorter, albeit not exactly brief, numbers – shimmers into focus, the listener’s engulfed in breathtaking, first barely-there and then all-encompassing beauty, and it won’t require a lot of imagination to discern the non-existent strings and woodwinds in this increasingly tangible ebb-and-flow. Once the snippets of bass and piano begin to bulge and ripple the initially serene and then stormy surface to sculpt groove and nuance, the sentimental depth of Galloway’s handling of melody and the breadth of his romantic gamut become almost unbearable – that’s why the split in three sections is required – but stopping the momentum can’t be recommended, especially when shards of pseudo-brass are factored in. With organ bolstering the scintillatingly oscillating “Cnidaria” and adding spiritual layer to the aural panorama, the proceedings seem more and more insistent, and after the central section of “Metazoa” stages a drama the dynamics of the mini-concerto make a quantum jump into both celestial and chthonic realms.
So while “Xenobotany” marries organic rhythm to synthetic sci-fi cinematics, and “Float / Drop” replaces this swirl with faux-abstract, spots of sun-dappled tune that gradually grow in scope and speed, “Metazoa Three” goes through the loops to lapse into magnificence only to see “The Anxiety Machine” – previously appearing on Malcolm’s ensemble’s offering in installments – exchange grandeur for grand-scale minimalism and cleanse the audience’s post-feast palate. However, what could negate the effect of the album as a whole, is counterbalanced with “Aquasoma Three” whose sonata approach and ambient elements get blended to shape a fitting finale to the stunning testament to the birth of cool. The talent of Malcolm Galloway’s has unfolded in full – at last!
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