Bleep

Jim Copperthwaite’s Ballroom Ghosts is a fine way to round out an excellent year for Village Green Records. The British composer’s debut LP has a cinematic quality that draws quick comparison to the likes of Danny Elfman and Philip Glass. Micro-loops and small motifs are coaxed into crafty chamber music replete with rich textures and winning melodies. As with much of Village Green’s output, the influence of composers like Ralph Vaughan-Williams and Edward Elgar can be felt in the expansive orchestration and pastoral harmonies. ‘Lights At Indian Cove’ is a particularly pretty bit of amber-suspended stillness that recalls Vaughan Williams’s seminal The Lark Ascending.