A quick return for English/Norwegian composer Nicholas Sillitoe and Polish violinist and string arranger Sebastian Gruchot as Nicholas and Sebastian as they edge towards the release of their album ‘Atmosfera’.
And it’s another dual release, this time the tracks ‘White Line Fever’ and ‘Aloneness’.
‘White Line Fever’ isthe lead single from the album and as the title suggests is concerned with long drives through unwelcoming territory, both literally and figuratively.
We’ve featured or I’ve written about several of those over the years, from Chris de Burgh’s gentle ‘Driving home for Christmas’ to Soffía’s lonely trek around the Icelandic ring road in a classic Mercedes Benz in search of home in ‘The Road’, to Weyes Blood’s fatal car crash as she nodded off and crossed that white line in ‘Grapevine’.
Those tracks were blunt and to the point if you’ll pardon the oxymoron. Nicholas and Sebastian’s interpretation is far more cinematic as they usually are. The endless white line of solitude is contrasted with the atmospheric expanse within which the journey is framed.
Yin and Yang on the M25.
‘Aloneness’ stands in contrast. We’re no longer on the move. Perhaps the van has given up the ghost. There is utter stillness and the silence speaks louder than sound, represented by repeating piano notes with fleeting strings attached.
They’ve turned into the Blue Boar service station on the M1 at Watford Gap and are idling away a few moments in car park solitude before meeting up with the phalanx of pop and rock stars that inhabited the ‘gateway to the North’ in the 1960s.
That might appear to be an odd observation but to me music is all about where it takes you and between them they took me on my own personal road trip.
There’s emotion, melancholy and passionate intensity woven into these pieces, a restrained antidote to the noise that pervades us everywhere.
Nicholas Sillitoe insists it is music that offers the quiet power of introspection over grand gestures. I’ll drink to that.
(Continues after the Spotify links)
Find them on:
Website (label page of company led by Nicholas Sillitoe): https://www.plusfourseven.com/nicholasandsebastian
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nicholasandsebastian
