Ghostly Aura

Ingram Marshall‘s Kingdom Come (Nonesuch) contains three pieces, the most noteworthy of which is “Hymnodic Delays,” a series of settings that contemporary-classical composer Marshall did for a spare vocal quartet who sing centuries-old New England hymns. The hymns would be beautiful enough on their own, but Marshall, who has long been a proponent of experimenting with sound technology, employs digital delays, which lend a warm, church-like reverb to the voices. Just about everything that any individual member of the quartet sings is repeated several times, making the group sound significantly larger than it is, and lending a ghostly aura to everything they utter.