The Most Beautiful Sounds Next to Silence

After multiple appearances as sideman for Louis Sclavis, the timely Characters on a Wall most recent among them, pianist Benjamin Moussay for quietly dominates the marquee of an ECM album cover. In this program of original solo material, he shows himself to be a genuinely focused player who values not only melodies but also the spaces in which they breathe. What began as more fully fledged compositions have grown more open-ended over time, whittled away to whispering motifs and suggestive chords.

Our introduction to Moussay’s sound percolates through the boulders of “127.” Inspired by 127 Hours, the 2010 biopic about Aron Ralston’s harrowing escape from Bluejohn Canyon, it comes to us fully formed. It so happens the theme of rock climbing is a personal one, as Moussay is himself an avid outdoorsman. His cyclical notecraft evokes not the danger of the backstory but rather the hallucinatory state in which Ralston found hope to persevere. Thankfully, neither certain death nor a severed arm are necessary to enter that mental state through the vision presented here: a glimpse of hope at a point in history when our own survival feels more precarious than ever. Related topographies dot the album, from the all-too-real anxiety of “Don’t Look Down” to the cold stillness of “Monte Perdido.” The latter is entirely improvised, as is “Théa,” a spirited ode to his daughter.

The indeterminate weaves of “L’Oiseau d’Or” (which works a hymnal recipe from nostalgic ingredients) and “Chasseur de Plumes” (written for a cat fond of chasing birds) sit comfortably between the picturesque beauties of “Villefranque” (transcribed from his improvisation at a friend’s house in the eponymous commune) and “Sotto Voce” (my favorite for its expressive directness). If any of this feels cinematic in the listening, it’s not by accident, at least in the case of three tracks written as accompaniment for Jean Renoir’s 1926 Nana. Within this generally darker spectrum, the band of “Horses” stands out for its progression from the familiar to the unknown. The title track, too, belongs on a screen as much as on a record. Like the land formation after which it is named, we know it to be ancient and part of a story beyond measure. Thus, it gives us a bigger view of what lies beyond the horizon, and how the songs of a brighter future might sound when we catch up to them at last, ragged and thirsting for their nourishment.

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