Vikki Jackman - Of Beauty Reminiscing (Faraway Press, 2007)

1 Wrapped in Whitnesses
2 And Then, a Blue Sky Overhead


A couple of months back, we received a small amount of the Vikki Jackman's debut LP on vinyl. There weren't enough to go around then, but now that it's been issued on CD; hopefully, we'll have plenty for everybody.
As we mentioned previously... Of Beauty Reminiscing is the debut album for Vikki Jackman who had previously contributed the evocative if very minimal clusters of piano notes on Andrew Chalk's Goldfall LP from a few months back. So taken was he by the results of that source material, Chalk offered Ms. Jackman an album of her own, which he would produce and release through his Faraway Press imprint. The piano that Jackman uses could never be confused for a concert piano as the antiquated instrument offers forth slightly askew if thoroughly elegant notes; and Jackman certainly emphasizes the idiosyncrasies of that piano through her fragile, open-ended and sparsely laid out melodies, which hold some similarities to Erik Satie's or maybe even Morton Feldman's piano compositions smeared with a decaying Victorian gracefulness. One half of this disc features Jackman by her lonesome, and the other appears to exhibit the hand of Andrew Chalk blurring the edges of many of her tones into a wistful fog of drifting dronescaping. Beautifully packaged and highly recommended.

Aquarius Records

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