Despite counting Gavin Bryars and Brian Eno as fans, Belgian composer Dominique Lawalrée's compositions have been hard to find and scarecly heard. New York label Catch Wave have been working hard to change this, and last year helped put together 'First Meeting' - a collection of pieces Lawalrée had only ever released on his own tiny imprint Editions Walrus. We were delighted to welcome Lawalrée to OTO to reimagine those early compositions and debut new works. A fan of Satie, The Beatles and Eno, Lawalrée’s music of makes no secret of its influences, whilst taking a distinctly unique approach to decay, timbre and tone.
"a quiet, understated music that is both touching and elegant" - Gavin Bryars
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The Dominique Lawalree Ensemble is Dominique Lawalree, Leo Svirsky, and Britton Powell. Recorded on Sunday 1st October 2017 by Shaun Crook. Mixed & mastered by James Dunn. Photo by Abby Thomas and artwork by Oli Barratt.
Available as 320k MP3 or 24bit FLAC
Dominique Lawalree was born in Brussels on October, 18, 1954 and has been an active composer since 1976. Since this time, Lawalree has written over 450 works, recorded more than twenty albums, and has performed countless tours throughout Europe. Throughout his music the listener finds the sounds of piano, synthesizers, percussion, fender rhodes, organ, and voice, all performed by Lawalree. Using these tools Dominique creates miniature themes that gallop across the speakers in slow motion, stretching our normal sense of dynamics and color, effortlessly widening the stereo plane. Childlike in its playfulness and surreal to the bone, the music spins like a carrousel placed inside the Rothko Chapel.
Lawalree’s sense of timbre, tone, and overarching composition is similar to a memory of cinema but not for the big screen. It seems more like an impression of a home movie whose charm can only be shared with the intimacy of a few. New Simplicity, Post-Minimalism, Proto-Ambient, or Totalism are all darts you can throw at this music but none of these descriptors quite pierce the distinct individuality that Lawalree’s music is made of.
The Dominique Lawalree Ensemble is Dominique Lawalree, Leo Svirsky, and Britton Powell
