Dialect - Under ~ Between

Dialect’s Under~Between unfolds with the hopeful energy of seedlings springing forth from soft earth. The longstanding project of Liverpool-based artist Andrew PM Hunt, Dialect’s cross-pollination of acoustic and synthetic ensembles with human voice on Under~Between grows into a joyous ecosystem of delicate sound and intimate, unexpected melodies, yielding a strange yet delectable fruit.

The eleven tracks of Under~Between began their life as chamber pieces commissioned by the new music group Immix Ensemble — an opportunity that Hunt says offered him a chance to rethink old creative habits, till new ideas, and begin from a fresh, fertile patch. Writing for woodwinds and strings, as well as piano and synthesizer, Hunt felt compelled to compose more melodically, to focus patiently on the details. The dirt under his nails was a sign of the work, and the sound was a signal of life. Hunt’s collaboration on Under~Between expanded beyond the Immix Ensemble to his own home. Hunt lives in a house with fifteen people, most of whom are artists and musicians that belong to a greater Liverpool community, which he says creates a “deeply nourishing” environment of creative reciprocity and exchange.

Under~Between allowed Hunt to incorporate some of this communal energy to the historically solitary practice of Dialect, and an abundance of time unencumbered by major metropolitan survival mode. In place of the rapturous monologues that filled Loose Blooms , the last album Hunt made as Dialect and released in 2017, Under~Between is an ecstatic conversation conjured from an inclusive communion and connection. In the same breath, the album tends toward stillness and patience (ever virtues, alone or not), an ambitious minimalist recording of fainting micro-melodies and natural grandeur. It wouldn’t feel out of place in Lovely Music Ltd.’s catalog, or transcribed as a chapter in Tobias Fischer and Lara Cory’s book Animal Music, which explores the significance of animal song and entertains the possibility of interspecies communication.