“14 tracks unstrung, the cello”

Being one of the lowest pitched string instruments, the Cello lends itself perfectly to our obsession with the bottom registers, carrying with it bass weight and a kind of aural gravity that often colours its surroundings with romance and tension. The selection this week comes to us from a broad spectrum of players, from the traditional movements of the Viklarbo Chamber Ensemble to the unparalleled pop genius of Arthur Russell, from the dense layering of Stars of The Lid to the mechanical augmentations of Janek Schaefer. Yet despite the variance in origin and intention, these pieces all share the austerity, melancholy and otherworldliness that gives the cello such prominence in modern music, at once effortlessly experimental, daring and suggestive of the extraordinary.