The Compilation Album Review

The Compilation Album by ​​RAYNALD GRENIER is more like a variety of different sonic universes than a traditional album, presented through layers of ethereal sound that flow over one another like a sonic soup. The listener gets whisked away almost immediately. The ambiguity within the mix allows the music to meet the listener halfway, giving space for our imagination while guiding the story. 

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The first track, Dolci Momenti, stood out in terms of establishing the project’s attitude to sound. It creates a set of ethereal, high register strings and then contrasts it with a deeper, contrasting register. There are moments when these aspects harmonize and others where they juxtapose, building in this ebb and flow of unity and dissonance. To me, this reads like the two sides of sweet moments, the phrase referenced in the song’s title. It acknowledges the joy of the situation with the subtle undertone of liminality. The deeper register aspects of the track, in their moments of dissonance, remind us that these moments are fleeting but in the context of that darkness, allows us to enjoy them even more. The next track, The Fortress, takes the narrative in a more literal direction. As a listener, it truly does feel like approaching this behemoth of a structure. You can almost hear the clip clopping of the horse’s hooves as you arrive at a giant fortress. The shrill vocals communicate a sense of fear while the deep strings give you as a listener a sense of the vast scale of this object. Nostalgia is a personal favourite of mine, having a more meandering melody, the track grows and evolves throughout. It truly feels like a train of thought, going over the past, exploring that sad happy feeling of times past, each memory bringing forward another memory. 

Overall, I’m really impressed by the narrative consistency and purity of vision in the The Compilation Album. It feels like every track has a specific identity which GRENIER fulfils in this project without compromise.