In conception, Along A Vanishing Plane is an exceedingly contemporary creation, sculpted using violins, synths, electronics and software. Yet while it’s in motion, the third solo LP from NYC-based musician Christopher Tignor feels distinctly apart from time: a measured, classical tonic. As a label, “modern composition” suits these reveries, but this music breathes, swoons and swoops elegiacally, in the same way a crack symphony orchestra might on a good night. “Dead Letter Library” sheds a dour skin to reveal a stridently meditative one. “One Eye Blue, One Eye Black (Blue)” explodes 12K Records minimalism into slow-motion, pointillist showers of sparks. The yearning “Artifacts Of Longing” trilogy is at once Plane’s literal and figurative heart, a string of violin themes so impossibly sad and stately that they’re beyond the reach of any textures or effects Tignor might dispatch to steer them away from the brink.
—Raymond Cummings
