Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
The discovery of the uniquely compelling is often looked upon as a moment strangely captured by Time; that it takes both the raging sea and the crumbling land to carve out something as beautiful as the White Cliffs of Dover or the unseen motion of a star going Supernova to brighten the night sky, in these actions Time moves so slowly to create fiery brilliance, the majesty of the final effect is all that people witness.
In Richard Durrant’s and Ismael Ledesma’s combined debut album working as duo, Durrant y Ledesma, Time has not been as sluggish, or deliberately consuming and yet it still has the effect upon the senses when you see the eroding of a cliff face to reveal the majesty underneath.
The album takes the listener into the world of the sanguine, of the measured passion that the guitar and harp can capture with seemingly effortlessness simplicity and yet, like anything beautiful, anything confidently unhindered by opinion, the more straight forward the art seems, the more intricate and almost impenetrable to disguise the effort and struggle it becomes.
It is in the collaboration that the effort is all consuming, all naturally alluring on the ear and one that both artists have a consummate way of producing. The sound of the unhindered instrumental is one that is honour bound, priceless in many ways, for to reproduce a sound without the idea of a poet’s interpretation in the myriad of notes and silent interludes is one that feels harmonious and crafted without the hypnotic spell being broken.
In tracks such La Balada del Indio, Guarania para Shoreham, the dynamic harp solo of A mi Pueblo, the gravitas of El Vagabundo and Greyfriars Strathspey, the idea of the homeless instrumental is dispelled, it is dismissed as fanciful that such music cannot exist outside of its own sphere; like Aker Bilk’s Stranger On The Shore or Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells, the instrumental when played with the unique focus is a dream to behold; it is the essence of the white cliffs seen for the first time close up, towering, monumental and intense.
Durrant y Ledesma is a dynamic and heart exposing album, a collaboration of beautiful souls.
Ian D. Hall