Ben Cosgrove
Empty Rooms
Versatile young composer and multi-instrumentalist returns with a weightier and more mature sophomore release
Good instrumental music is hard to come by. But Empty Rooms, the 2008 release from young multi-instrumentalist Ben Cosgrove is a step in the right direction. Characterized by notable increases both in musicianship and emotional weight from Cosgrove’s work on 2005’s Kaleidoscope, the new record follows a carefully constructed arc, guiding the listener on a thirteen-track journey through songs as varied as the lushly orchestrated 8-minute closer “Anchor and Crane” and the minute-long ukulele solo “Armory Road.”
Empty Rooms brings with it a focus on program music- each song is tied to something “larger than itself,” as Cosgrove points out in the liner notes, be that history, place, literature, or philosophy. The centerpiece of the record, the epic “Many Waters,” is a tribute to the four Central Massachusetts towns that were flooded in the 1930s to create the Quabbin Reservoir. To compose the piece, Cosgrove traveled out to hike all around the Quabbin, interviewed the members of the historical society, and spent months extensively researching the towns that were lost and the families that were displaced.
As ever before, Cosgrove plays nearly all of the instruments, in addition to composing, producing, and designing the record, but listeners will be pleased to find trumpeter Reynaldo Santana returning to play on 3 tracks. Other guest contributions by drummer Ben Burns and violinist Molly Siegel can be heard on “Unfolding,” a richly-textured instrumental pop tune.
Alternative-instrumental is a genre that is hard to define, but Cosgrove fits nicely into it- these pieces may be hard to characterize in relation to the stylistic boundaries that currently exist, but they have a cohesive style and sound that is unique to all of Ben Cosgrove’s music. This album finds him not only honing that sound to a finer degree than ever before, but also using it to make some powerful artistic statements. This record unquestionably features his finest work to date.
RECOMMENDED TRACKS:
“Distant Music,” “Come Down,” “New Salem,” “Many Waters,” “Unfolding”
Classical: Tone Poem