London born musician and composer Poppy Ackroyd is classically trained on violin and piano, but her experimental approach to playing these instruments has taken her music in an unusual direction. Her debut album Escapement was created with sounds using only the piano and the violin. Ackroyd describes her instrumentation as “played both conventionally or created inside the piano using fingers, e-bows and plectrums – violin textures, melodies and pizzicato riffs and finally delicate beats composed of hits, plucks, taps and scrapes made using hands, drumsticks, beaters and small cymbals on either the frame, strings or dampers of the piano.”
Ackroyd records every sound individually and then multi-tracks them together on her laptop. The result is delicate, ethereal and complex, and, while this approach to playing is certainly intellectual, her music is surprisingly accessible. It’s intensely quiet music, too. So quiet that this reviewer is acutely aware of the noise made by the camera’s shutter on taking another photograph. No need for the usual earplugs tonight.
For this live performance, Ackroyd shares the stage with John Lemke, who triggers sampled loops of percussion so that she is free to play the lead melody on her keyboard or violin. The convoluted recording process used to initially create the music would be near impossible to recreate entirely live, but it would be impressive to see her try.
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