Rich Pellegrin: Topography (Slow & Steady Records, 2024)

October 27, 2024 at 3:06 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Rich Pellegrin: Topography

Pianist Rich Pellegrin recorded this album in a church over the course of a few sessions, along with saxophonist Neil Welch. All of the songs are titled after different natural locations, with some specifying whether they’re taking place during day or night, so they’re all like snapshots or scenes. They’re also conceptualized by Pellegrin, sometimes written, sometimes internally, but still improvised by the players. It’s all very intimate sounding, especially Welch’s playing, in which you can hear every breath stroke and movement, though there are also times where he seems a bit distant, or on the periphery. The gentle piano notes during “Stream” are what my brain keeps coming back to after putting this album on late at night so many times, there’s just something so calming and assuring yet still mysterious about that part. “Field (day)” is both one of the more rhythmic and melodic pieces, it creates more of a sense of traveling than the others. Both “Canyon” pieces fittingly have a vastness to them, but the “night” one does so in a particularly haunting way. Final track “Marsh” somehow meshes the parts of the album that feel comforting and eerie.

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