Michael Cashmore - The Snow Abides [Durtro Jnana - 2007]This new ep coming not long after Cashmore excellent solo album Sleep England, shows us a different musically side to this talented musician and composer. It finds Cashmore steping way from his guitar and onto using piano and percussion, joined by the instantly recognisable voice of Antony (of Antony and the Johnson) & David Tibet written lyrics and words, along with rich string and brass contributions from others. So as you can see we have an impressive collection of musical and word key players on offer, which together give a very lush and elegant collection of piano led song craft with rich instrumental swells of an epic classical air. Really making an EP that sounds like neither of the three men’s work. The only puzzling thing is why is all the credit giving to just Cashmore?, surely it would have made more sense to give the project it’s own name away from any solo connection. Because though Cashmore wrote the music clearly this is a rich collaboration, which involves each party to equal an extent. In all we have five songs, all but the first track having Antony’s wonderful emotional vocal performances on. Sadly the whole thing only lasts just over 22 minutes in all, leaving this as a small sweet treat. A very intriguing, rich musically and lyrically world that hopeful all the involved parties will investigate further in the future. The one small disappointment is that Tibet's lyrics don’t appear in the digi-pak, it’s always nice to have them as sang and written word. Roger Batty
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