A Winged Victory For The Sullen – A Winged Victory For The Sullen

Adam Wiltzie and Dustin O’Halloran must get on very well. They have combined here to release their first collaborative work, A Winged Victory For The Sullen, and done so in spectacular fashion. Guest appearances by the Icelandic cellist Hildur Guðnadóttir and violinist Peter Broderick only excite our neurons further. Delicate and restrained in its approach, this album is undeniably affecting.

Wiltzie, one half of Stars of the Lid, is well versed at producing music that unfolds slowly, gradually enveloping the listener. There are shades of that here, but O’Halloran’s contributions add structure and focus to the experience. On some tracks it is O’Halloran who is in the foreground. “Minuet for a Cheap Piano Number Two” is a beautifully haunting piano led piece that aches with sadness. But elsewhere we find “Requiem for a Static King (Part 1)”, a song that would not feel out of place on a Stars of the Lid album.

For the most part, though, the album represents new territory for both artists. Their subtle, contemplative approaches combine to form a work that is deeply moving. At times it feels as if I’m listening to the soundtrack to a film about beautiful characters living tragic lives. If this is the effect Wiltzie and O’Halloran were hoping to achieve, they were certainly not in a hurry to do so. The songs seem to take single, often simple, ideas and meditate on them, allowing them to unfold and develop in their own time. This concept is never more apparent than in the album’s closing, and perhaps strongest, track “All Farewells are Sudden”, where less really is more.

A Winged Victory For The Sullen will move most who give it the time and attention it deserves. It represents the perfect blend of two wonderfully gifted musicians who have crafted an album that stands out as one of the very best of 2011. The album is co-released by Chicago based Kranky and London based Erased Tapes Records.

One of my favourite albums of 2011 ! Starts out with drawn out cello and violins for the intro and into a piano with long reverberation bass ivory key loveliness then into something that can only be orchestrated mellow madness as the sounds go into a near feedback frenzy.
The results are, almost inevitably, meditative and cinematic, but also, more unusually for music of this so-called ‘post-classical’ album, rich in melody and genuinely haunting, numinous atmosphere. Thus, tremulous, pensive opener and sometimes sending you over the edge.
Composed by two musicians at the height of their craft, the album reveals itself, thus far, as the apex of a limited genre still forming and as one of our finest contemporary acts of remembrance and ascension.

"A Symphony Pathetique" has a very similar progression, except the instruments here are acoustic, to the track "Dry Retch" from Donnacha Costello's fantastic 2001 release, Together is the New Alone.

Simply beautiful, the whole LP, but especially that moment, that track. I love it when that happens.