Jordan Ireland - Spirit Walking

Another strikingly pretty record courtesy of the Brierfield Flood Press stable (see also Hana Stretton, Glen. Rey) with this second solo album from Australian music underground fixture, Jordan Ireland. The more keen eared amongst you may have spotted this one on initial release back in 2022, though its small run of 250 copies inevitably didn't hang around too long. Back in print again in another low edition, the appeal of Spirit Walking persists undimmed, an especially delicate sounding type of music that sits comfortably within the context of a particular strand of contemporary Australian music. Its 12 mostly short, unadorned piano improvisations radiate a relaxed, gentile quality that seems to be shared, at least in spirit if not precise form, by fellow Antipodeans Wilson Tanner,  Unchained, Maxine Funke and of course, Ireland's label mates. If it's not so much in the water, it's in the air down there, a sense of pastoral life lived at a pace that comes floating in on a breeze, a quality well captured in Ireland's graceful, unshowy but clearly adept playing, a series of half-speed waltzes shaded with the occasional flourish and trill. It's the kind of subtle virtuosity that, outside of Australia, also reminds me of the likes of Memotone and Blue Lake at their most bucolic. It's unclear where exactly this was recorded, though you'd imagine wherever it is there aren't too many stories on the surrounding buildings. Almost too well suited to the slow motion days of this current heatwave.  
 
FFO: Wilson Tanner, Maxine Funke, Hana Stretton, Memotone, Blue Lake