Bing & Ruth is a project led by the composer and pianist David Moore, supported by a number of clarinets, cellos, basses and tape effects. I am not well versed in the taxonomy of music and feel likely to commit some sort of crime if I try and bracket this into a genre (neo-classical? Avant-classical? Ambient?) but let’s just say it’s instrumental and really very beautiful.
The purpose of this sort of music usually falls into one of two categories: to soundtrack (and enhance the power of) a reel of images or to conjure images from thin air, allow the listener to transcend their surroundings. On Tomorrow Was the Golden Age, Bing & Ruth do both. If you are watching the world go by from a train window then the album seems to mould to your surroundings, amplifying small details into imagery, transforming your commute into a slice of cinema. If you are lying in bed with your headphones on or strapped to your ergonomic chair in an office cubicle, TWTGA does the reverse, erasing all details and starting afresh, using the ethereal instrumentation to weave delicate but intricate soundscapes. The lack of percussion adds to the beauty, the tracks taking your by the hand and leading you through worlds that are rich and wide and limited only by your imagination.
[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/163281999″]
The thing is, words like ethereal and celestial and transcendental struggle to describe what makes this record so lovely. These grand words are hyperbole and their use chokes the album in a thicket of cliches, the ‘review’ falling flat in the way of a second-hand dream. If you want to know what makes this Bing and Ruth record so lovely, you are going to have to listen.
You can buy the album from the Happy Talk Recordings Bandcamp page.