There’s a fine balance between reverence and disruption, and FELD walks it with precision on ‘Luster’. Rather than explore a reinterpretation of classical ideas in any conventional sense, it delivers a dismantling, reshaping, and at times, deliberate distortion of them.
Drawing loosely from late Romantic piano traditions, the project takes familiar harmonic language and fractures it into something far less stable. Echoes of composers like Louis Vierne surface briefly, only to be bent out of shape by glitch-heavy processing and abrupt structural shifts. What might begin as something recognisable quickly becomes something more abstract, as textures splinter and reform in unpredictable ways.
Piano tones are stretched, clipped, and reassembled, often sitting alongside jagged electronic elements that feel almost intrusive. There’s a sense of tension running throughout, but it’s this contrast that gives the work its character, allowing moments of beauty to exist, but never without some form of disruption.
FELD’s background in theory is evident in the construction. Even in its most fragmented moments, there’s a logic underpinning the chaos. Patterns emerge, dissolve, and return in altered forms, suggesting a careful design beneath the surface instability.
The performance aspect adds another layer. Incorporating unconventional tools and physical gestures into the process, the music feels tied to movement as much as sound. And that physicality translates into the recordings, giving them a sense of immediacy despite their digital manipulation.
But what prevents ‘Luster’ from becoming overly academic is its tonal edge. There’s a sense that the dismantling of these traditions is also playful in its own way. It reshapes its influences into something that feels both confrontational and oddly engaging.
‘Luster’ isn’t an easy listen, nor does it aim to be. But within its fractured structures and uneasy textures, there’s a clear artistic voice that treats the past as something to interrogate and transform.