The Fixed Rope of Collaboration

Fixed Rope is an ambient third album from the trio made up of: Kevin Blagg, William Suran, and Dante Carfagna. In the beginning, Express Rising was simply a solo project for Dante (who also is known as The Funk Archivist) but his expansion of sound has made the music even more memorable than before. These twelve instrumental tracks were recorded in just one take in the heart of rural Arkansas. This is an impressive fact due to how explosive and natural the chemistry between the musicians is. Listeners could easily mistake these tracks for a work that a sole producer composed and carefully layered over a much more extended period of time. That is further testament to the magic that Express Rising so easily makes.

The instruments used by the trio include: banjo, keyboard, drum machine and pedal steel guitar. Each instrument serves as a vital part of the mood of each track. The track “Spirit Darts” shows the musicians’ strong ability in taking different instruments and creating one cohesive mind-blowing result. In this one, they combine banjos and slide guitars which causes the sound to be ethereal and cosmic.

Continuing with the trend of combining various fascinating instruments, the track “Perishable Looks” is a gorgeous one. Although it’s a fairly short song, it still manages to leave an impression due to the combination of piano and guitar. This may seem like an obvious mixture, but somehow the result here is still new and fresh. It has a sad and heartbreaking element to it, but nevertheless it is beautiful and even out of this world.

The remainder of the album is heavy with strong emotions and uses instruments in many unique ways. Tracks like “Aylmeri Bracelet” and “Fixed Rope” utilize distant string sounds, which turn out to be definitely pleasing to the listener’s ears. With Fixed Rope, the trio has perfectly captured a creative sound through these live and one take recordings. Even though it was possibly inspired by dark times, the album is inspirational and full of hope.