Maya Shenfeld trained as a guitarist, learning classical guitar at university in her native Jerusalem and later playing electric guitar in assorted art projects in Berlin. You can see her online, playing her instrument through a laptop and a host of effects pedals; improvising over tape loops; or leading an ensemble of 11 guitarists to rework Julius Eastman’s minimalist classic Gay Guerrilla until it sounds like a Sonic Youth track.
But Shenfeld’s debut album doesn’t feature any guitar. Instead it explores texture and grain using analogue synths, brass and human voices. A lot of music rooted in drone-based minimalism can be quite harmonically tedious, but Shenfeld’s compositions go places. Sadder Than Water, the longest track here, sounds like a Bach fugue being played in slow motion by Wendy Carlos; Body, Electric is a series of descending, constantly modulating synth arpeggios over a warm blanket of drones; Voyager sounds like one of the more compelling instrumentals from David Bowie’s Low. Shenfeld also creates space-age soundscapes using acoustic sources: the opening and closing tracks create sepulchral tones by exaggerating the natural resonances of brass instruments; while Mountain Larkspur sees her getting a youth choir to sing in ghostly, microtonal harmonies.
