Tristan Allen - Tin Iso and the Dawn

Utterly immersive compositional work from Brooklyn-based musician and puppeteer, Tristan Allen, loosely based around Wagner's three act opera, Tristan und Isolde. You'd assume some biographical connections were being made here given the titular names, though what that means i couldn't possibly understand from only listening to the music itself (watch me give it a go, though). What's slightly clearer is that Allen's own personal history appears central to Tin Iso and the Dawn's construction, having been recorded across numerous locations of personal significance, each city a place Allen would have once called home and shared with family. Given all that, it's no surprise that these six songs are possessed of a considerable emotional heft. Their elemental subtitles tell half the story - Stars and Moon; Sea and Sky; Land and Growth; Death and Dawn - speaking of a grandiosity in-keeping with the legend of Wagner's narrative, as if Allen's exploring the fantasy of his own romantic hero's quest, perhaps? Pick it apart all you like, but even on face value this is bracingly beautiful compositional work, recorded and arranged pristinely, coloured by subtle tonal flourishes and field recordings. I must admit, few records have hit me with such immediacy this year, yet repeated listens (of which they're have been several this past week) have revealed new depths, too, shifting my understandings each time. Struggling to make any direct comparisons, though strangely Allen seems to conjure a similar fantastical, escapist feel to Paddy McAloon's still impossibly moving I Trawl the Megahertz, both voyaging outwards in an attempt to find themselves. Allen makes it easy to journey with them.