08-07-2020, 13:55
WIM MERTENS - The Gaze of the West
![[Image: R-15473677-1592126078-8091.jpeg.jpg]](https://img.discogs.com/RZ8tA2nxXAry-Mb2axiDvTROCDo=/fit-in/300x300/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(40)/discogs-images/R-15473677-1592126078-8091.jpeg.jpg)
Wim Mertens is a Flemish contemporary classical composer whose work we've probably all heard before in one form or another without knowing. I can't comment on this compared to anything else he's done, suffice to say it reminds me of Penguin Cafe, in way - slightly avant-garde yet not so much as to be incomprehensible. Mertens wrote everything and there are 23 musicians in all; it's orchestral without being stiff - the first track excepted which is more or less in the style of a military tattoo that I nearly didn't get past - glad I did though. It would appear to be an unspoken commentary on the present rather confused state of the world which is a little hard to fathom until you let your imagination go along with it - so many issues currently unleashed, mind you, when were there ever not! I like it.
This piece feels somehow familiar, although it can't be ...
Wim Mertens is a Flemish contemporary classical composer whose work we've probably all heard before in one form or another without knowing. I can't comment on this compared to anything else he's done, suffice to say it reminds me of Penguin Cafe, in way - slightly avant-garde yet not so much as to be incomprehensible. Mertens wrote everything and there are 23 musicians in all; it's orchestral without being stiff - the first track excepted which is more or less in the style of a military tattoo that I nearly didn't get past - glad I did though. It would appear to be an unspoken commentary on the present rather confused state of the world which is a little hard to fathom until you let your imagination go along with it - so many issues currently unleashed, mind you, when were there ever not! I like it.
This piece feels somehow familiar, although it can't be ...
"The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that it has never tried to contact us." ~ Bill Watterson