Rodman-Melchior, Letha

Shimmering Ghost

Siltbreeze

LP $16.00

01/20/2015 655030117619

SB 176

MP3 $7.99

01/20/2015 655030117619

FLAC $9.90

01/20/2015 655030117619

This posthumous release, following last year’s Handbook for Mortals, presents the peak of Letha Rodman-Melchior’s compositional work. Traversing landscapes of affective registers with the organizational ability of Christine Sun Kim and the diversity and intimacy of Throbbing Gristle, Rodman-Melchior re-categorizes objects to find the foreign in the familiar. Moving in and out of focus, her musical patterns themselves grow and become more and more self-aware.

As a response to possession and the human / nonhuman interface, Shimmering Ghost recalls the most moving of performances by Roger Reynolds. It exposes the overlap between senses and suggests that resonance, as distinct from hearing, is a source for beauty beyond sense. And by the use of sense’s special effects, Rodman-Melchior crafts a language that is simply a pleasure. Mary Lattimore’s harp playing at times is reminiscent of Three Musicians’ Music from the Rochester Folk Art Guild, but with urgency heard nowhere else.