{"id":20522,"date":"2021-02-21T05:30:34","date_gmt":"2021-02-21T10:30:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=20522"},"modified":"2021-02-15T10:41:12","modified_gmt":"2021-02-15T15:41:12","slug":"album-review-robert-jurjendal-water-finds-a-way","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2021\/02\/21\/album-review-robert-jurjendal-water-finds-a-way\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: Robert J\u00fcrjendal \u2013 Water Finds a Way"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-20523\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/jurjendal_water.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"350\" height=\"350\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/jurjendal_water.jpg 350w, https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/jurjendal_water-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/jurjendal_water-150x150.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 350px) 100vw, 350px\" \/>Keeping up with such matters as I do, I\u2019ve learned that there are quite a few different ways of coping with the realities of 2020 and beyond. That\u2019s especially true for creative types. Some have gone to ground; others are in full creative flower.<\/p>\n<p>Estonian guitarist Robert J\u00fcrjendal is most definitely in the latter category. At least that\u2019s the impression I\u2019ve formed after receiving not one, not two but three new albums featuring his instrumental work. <i>Once Only<\/i> by Eternal Return and Noya Godwin J\u00fcrjendal\u2019s <i>Samliku<\/i> have been reviewed elsewhere on Musoscribe. <i>Water Finds a Way<\/i> is billed as a solo album. And all are impressive enough \u2013 and different from one another \u2013 to warrant coverage here; that almost never happens.<\/p>\n<p>As its title suggests, <i>Water Finds a Way<\/i> is a peaceful, placid, contemplative yet powerful work. The guitarist\u2019s favored approach her involved lengthy sustained notes that recalls Rober Fripp circa \u201cThe Sheltering Sky\u201d and\/or his work with Eno. But the tunes are \u201cprettier\u201d than one might expect from a progressive-leaning musician, and more appealing and distinctive than the typical ambient approach.<\/p>\n<p>This is most definitely impressionistic music, the sort of thing that can be enjoyed actively or passively. The spaces between the notes are effective, and the minimal instrumentation \u2013 bits of cello, wordless voice and piano \u2013 adds tone color without cluttering up the arrangements. Subtle dissonance creeps into \u201cHikers,\u201d along with what sounds like a cross between a vibraphone and a guitar signal fed through a rotating Leslie speaker cabinet. Faraway guitar squalls suggest the desolation of Scandinavian winter on &#8220;On the Border of Sleep.&#8221; (At least to me they do.)<\/p>\n<p>Elsewhere there\u2019s gently shimmering acoustic guitar (\u201cThe Lake Freezes\u201d), and soothing, hypnotic waves of guitar notes (\u201cFor the Bees\u201d). There\u2019s sometimes a melancholy air to tracks like \u201cGrey and Blue,\u201d but in general, the music exists as a kind of sonic canvas upon which the listener can imagine his her own emotional watercolor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Keeping up with such matters as I do, I\u2019ve learned that there are quite a few different ways of coping with the realities of 2020 and beyond. That\u2019s especially true [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20523,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,40,49,65],"tags":[4460],"class_list":["post-20522","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ambient","category-instrumental","category-new-release","category-review","tag-robert-jurjendal","cat-5-id","cat-40-id","cat-49-id","cat-65-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20522","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20522"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20522\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20526,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20522\/revisions\/20526"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20523"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}