Twilight Fields

On Twilight Fields, his second release for ECM proper, talented multi-instrumentalist Stephan Micus expands the sonic capabilities of the flowerpot, first revealed on 1982’s Wings Over Water. Artfully tuned and played by hand or with a mallet, these otherwise quotidian objects speak a xylophonic language in the company of instruments familiar to Micus listeners: hammered dulcimer, Bavarian zither, shakuhachi, and nay. Of the album’s five parts, the fourth is surely one of his most beautiful creations. The vocal qualities of his nay open like lotuses on a pond, foreshadowing a mournful fade.