There is Only Love and Fear

The composer, producer and percussionist Bex Burch has built a cult following on thinking outside the box, her leftfield smarts evidenced by her experimental runnings with Sarathy Korwar, Leafcutter John and her own gyil (wooden xylophone)-led trio Vula Viel. On this solo debut, a collaboration with like-minded musicians cherry-picked for her by renowned Chicago-based label International Anthem, she plays inside, under and on the box as well. Burch honed her gyil skills with master player Thomas Segura in remote Upper West Ghana, and maxed out the instrument’s harmonic resonances with fellow instrument maker Jamie Linwood, in Stroud, Gloucestershire. Now, she allows her custom-made wooden xylophone to anchor a project variously powerful, delicate, moving, avant-garde and utterly, wonderfully accessible.

Found sounds – wailing sirens, slow dripping water and intakes of breath; nightingales in Berlin, waves on the Baltic coast, pebbles crunching underfoot – are allowed to breathe, unsettle, envelope. Chiming notes, melodic here, dissonant there, weave around woodwind, drums, violin and double bass. Drones buzz in ways hypnotic and intergalactic. Tempo is sped up, wound down. Terry Riley-esque minimalism is at a premium throughout, invested with a wonder of discovery – ‘Fruit Smoothie with Peanut Butter’ is a microcosm of a world in bloom; the angular ‘Don’t Go Back to Sleep’ feels like birds solving equations in swaying wheat fields – and exudes a love of sound-making as craft. There’s witchery to be had in ‘Follow Me, I Make You Happy’, and an elemental, back-to-the-womb vibe in the water-drop duets of ‘On Falling’. A bold, affecting work that hits on levels micro and macro, There is Only Love and Fear might just be a sonic masterpiece.