(All but) removing the bass from the equation is instructive. Play the track ‘Last seen October 9th’ (from Eleanor McEvoy’s album Yola, MOSCO EMSACD1) and the Spartan piano accompaniment to the exposed vocal, the subtle strings fills accentuate not just the deliberate pacing of the song but the pauses in the narrative. It’s an object lesson in the importance of the space that exists between notes as well as the notes themselves; space that too many systems and especially speakers blur, smudge or dilute with stored energy that bleeds into what should be silent space. In stark contrast, the Marquis plays the tail of the notes with the same precision and scaled energy as it does the leading edges. So the sadness and desolation of ‘Last Seen…’ is driven home, just as effectively as the jolted, pointed rhythms underpinning a song like ‘Leaves Me Wondering’.
Take it a stage further, to the very limit of musical expression and Mitsuko Uchida’s astonishing concert performance of the Andante con motosecond movement from Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto(BPHR180243). Short and tragic, most musicians play the movement in a little over four minutes. Uchida strings it out to nearly five and a half – and that extra 25% is all silence! The Marquis offer the music all of the freedom it demands, their ability to track both the amplitude and the spacing of the notes as wonderfully explicit as the performance is deeply felt. It’s (literally) a master class in the power of poised musical restraint, a lesson the conductor Simon Rattle would do well to take on board, although even his ham-fisted orchestral belches can’t disturb the majestic pathos of Uchida’s playing. Few speakers in my experience can match the Gobel’s ability to let the recording set the musical pace, allowing the space between notes, the micro-dynamic discrimination and the inky black background define the pattern of the performance rather than imposing a grid upon it.
If that responsive nature is most apparent in slower passages, passages that demand a speaker to start AND stop, passages that lag through other speakers, it is less obvious but no less important on more varied, more driven or simply more hurried material. The way that Mikey Chung accelerates through those urgent bass riffs on ‘Rasta Fiesta’ (Sly Wicked And Slick,Virgin/Taxi FL 1042) has never been so powerfully impressive. The gloriously semi-organised chaos that is Steve Earl’s album Copperhead Road(MCA MCF 3246 – on which he is aided and abetted, at least as regards the chaos, by the Pogues) never seems to settle to a steady rhythm. Songs like the title track and ‘Johnny Come Lately’ start in measured enough a fashion but then rhythmically speaking, so does a runaway train. The Marquis simply nails the necessary combination of frenetic urgency, energy and clarity, letting the track run but never letting go. Did I mention the drums? Big, solid beats. These are drums that aren’t just being hit – they’re staying hit! The sheer power that is generated on a track like ‘Waiting On You’ is so potent it is almost physically propulsive. I defy anyone to sit unmoved and unmoving in front of this musical tour de force. It brings a whole new, an almost physical meaning to the notion of ‘wall of sound’. I might say that Phil never dreamed of this – but then I’m not sure Phil’s dreams are somewhere I really want to go…
Speaking clearly…
Few if any speakers in my experience (including the larger Divin Noblesse) can match the sheer intelligibility of the lyrics on this album, ever a favoured torture track in these parts. No great recording, the Göbels manage to sort out the overlapping layers and dense arrangements, bringing a sense of shape and clarity without diminishing the presence, destroying the music’s integrity or diluting that all-important attitude. If the mood takes you then they are just as adept when it comes to unravelling rapid-fire rap lyrics or rendering Robert Smith’s ‘sheets of sound’ guitar on The Head On The Door (Fiction FIXH 11), conveying the sheer athleticism necessary from (and energy expended by) Sol Gabetta playing the cello transcription of ‘Winter’ from The Four Seasons (Il Progetto Vivaldi, Sony Music 88697 131691) or the temporal dexterity demanded by ‘Love For Sale’ (Cannonball Adderley, Somethin’ Else, UHQCD 40116).
