Ahead of the release of their new collaborative album Trace, out May 12th, cellist Helen Money and composer Will Thomas are sharing the album’s luscious, immersive title track. Demonstrating the duo’s masterful command or atmosphere and texture, “Trace” emerges from sweeping cello vapours and crystalline piano chords, building from slow, delicate gestures into a hypnotic pulse as the piece grows more rhythmically and sonically dense; each deviation rewarding with unexpected textures and sounds.
Helen Money and Will Thomas are masters of invoking emotional atmospheres. Their music paints in vibrant hues with outlines blurred, often using dense layers of processed instruments and textural ambience as a backdrop for harmonic tension and melodies. Trace is thrillingly cinematic. Each piece tells a compelling story through ratcheting suspense, twisting shifts, unfurling arcs, and blissful repose. “I don’t compose with a storyline in mind,” says Chesley. “I search for a feeling – a sound. It’s often not until the very end of the process that I realize what I was trying to express.” Throughout the album, Helen Money and Wil Thomas utilize timbre, tone and dynamics as essential tools in crafting stunning emotive narratives. Together, the duo wield sound with inquisitive aplomb, burrowing into each other’s sonic aesthetics and unearthing irrefutable beauty.
Helen Money plans to tour in support of Trace throughout 2023 and 2024.
