Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
The edge of Noir comes calling, the thriller so carefully played out that Trevor Howard, Orson Welles and Graham Greene could sit back in reclining chairs somewhere in the South American sunshine and tell old tales of spies, cheating at the game and crimes of passion long before the credits roll and the music leaves the audience to appreciate the finality of it all. Some episodes of the Noir culture lend themselves perfectly, some come along and leave a crater of enjoyment so wide it is possible to understand the scale of its arrival just by the impact it leaves on the memory.
For Richard Durrant, The Girl at the Airport is the culmination of a journey that started out as a young boy with guitar lessons in Brighton and via other notable albums and the immensity of the first two recordings in his Paraguayan trilogy; a journey that has reached a fitting and beautiful ending with composed music that sings without lyrics and which catches the heart unprepared for the romantic diversion offered in the space of Noir like subtly.
When making a trilogy, especially one involved in music rather than film making, the musician is surely mindful that those that didn’t buy into the vision on the first album might not hang around the epicentre of good taste for a while, that their desires lay elsewhere and the music is too much for them to invest time in; not so with the Paraguayan trilogy and certainly not with the fantastic offering that lays perfectly intact in The Girl at the Airport.
The album, which holds such charming instrumental pieces as Our Man In Asuncion, Panambi Raity, La Isla de Paraguay and Romanza di un Sole, brings the whole experience enjoyed by Richard Durrant one of flavour and peace but one that edges on the darkness with delight, the thought of dusky nights watching a street festival for the odd person who stands out, the temptation of a hurriedly written note leading you to the brink of discovery and the possible final piece in a complex musical jigsaw puzzle is one that is endlessly fascinating and endearing to embroiled within.
All good things must come to an end, an exhilarating plot, the music of the soul; all must pass eventually, however unlike that one day in your life where you let the person leave, The Girl at the Airport can be relived time and time again.
Richard Durrant’s The Girl At The Airport is released on Friday 26th February.
Ian D. Hall