Dark - Album by EnT-T

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Pure pleasure… she plays the pieces with her beautiful sound, exact expression, and tenderness that make this album so unique. 
(Haaretz)

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Grand talent… The jewel in this lotus is "Du'a-Invocation"… The closing cover of Steve Reich's “Piano Phase” is a fifteen-minute tour-de-force… 
(Avant Music News)

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Ent-t Records continue their excellent work in producing interesting instrumental albums by top performers, not least with the new album "Dark" by harpist Julia Rovinsky. The five tracks here are versions of pieces by top composers, opening with the brief 'The Room,' courtesy ambient-meister Harold Budd. Rovinsky's version of 'Etude For Piano No. 2' by Philip Glass is calm and reflective, like a nylon musical box, while 'Du'A-Invocation' by Munir Bashir is forbidding, in places minimalist. 'Für Alina' by the great composer Arvo Pärt soars, albeit delicately. The most interesting track for me is the concluding one, a version of Steve Reich's extraordinary 'Piano Phase,' here given a spectral and beautifully performed intensity - the album highlight for sure.

(Terrascope) 

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Dawn - Album by EnT-T

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delicate and relaxing... 
(Terrascope)

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With the release of first “Dusk” and then “Dark”, it hardly required psychic powers to predict that harpist Julia Rovinsky´s next solo album would be called “Dawn”. Continuing to follow a sparklingly unconventional star on such a historically-freighted chamber instrument, Rovinsky chooses pieces never intended to be executed on her instrument by John Cage, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Gavin Bryars, and skyrocketing, Moscow-born Israeli composer Uri Brener. As with her first two albums, reviewed elsewhere in AMN, Rovinsky treats us to “close-up” versions of these works. “Dusk” may be characterized as a bit romantic and dramatic, casting the listener from comfortable despair to cautious optimism, while “Dark” was a somewhat more staid, meditative affair. Both are outstanding. “Dawn” is a worthy closing chapter to her trilogy.

Many years ago I happened to hear John Cage´s “Dream” played by two Swedish lutanists and found it heavenly, and Rovinsky sits perched on the same cloud with them. As on “Dark”, Sakamoto´s piece “Energy Flow” is the most genteel and escapist moment. Gavin Bryars´ “Sketch for Sub Rosa” was written for two pianos and originally appeared on a 1987 compilation for the Belgian label of the same name, along with new pieces by Jon Hassell and Harold Budd. Bryars´ original recording has a spectral, abandoned-house feel, while Rovinsky´s, played at the same snail´s pace, is decidedly warmer. The two complement each other. And though far from mirror images, Cage´s “Dream” and Brener´s exquisite “Perelanda´s Tale” serve as matching bookends insofar as Zen calm and concentration are concerned.

As cover art, “Dawn” features a detail from an oil painting by one Alvit S., a perfect choice (and an artist I want to see more of).

(Avant Music News)