Eve Matin – ‘TRANSMUTANCIA’ Review

What does Eve Matin sound like?

Harp: Unleashed and Untamed.

The review of ‘TRANSMUTANCIA’ by Eve Matin

The harp is one of those instruments that can be utterly transformed into dimensions you wouldn’t usually expect the harp to morph into. Peruvian harpist Eve Matin knows this all too well, as she has been exploring the edges of the harp since she was a young child. When not performing with ensembles and symphonic orchestras, she performs experimental improvisational performances, formed from her Baháʼí faith background. For Eve, music is less about following rigid performance and more about forming a being in the moment.

That brings us to ‘TRANSMUTANCIA’. One of Eve Matin’s one-hour improvisations was captured live without her knowledge. The opening three tracks of Eve’s debut EP are taken from this performance. The opening track, ‘Azam and Eve,’ is percussive, bombastic, and focuses on bold bass notes and the noises a harp string can make when scratched and bent. It is atonal and has a heavy mood. It sets us up for the glissando-rich explosion that is ‘Whisper for Fatimih’. This entire track is like a harp evoking a boiling kettle. This track holds tone and mood as it rouses and bubbles up, becoming strident and more dynamic over time without shifting chords. By the time Eve Matin hits a glissando shower that runs at the speed of sound, it is a rapturous fanfare. As that track fades away, ‘The day that shall not be followed by night’ takes over. This is a beautiful, vibrant, mysterious shroud that moves from elegance to cinematic brush strokes of sound that are delightfully ambiguous. Eve isn’t afraid to mix delicate and intricate cascades of Latin-tinged notes with clangs of bass rumbles. It is an extravagant piece, and the trio work superbly as a triptych.

We switch gears slightly for the next two tracks. ‘Chiqchipa’ and ‘Pilgrimage’ are actual compositions rather than live improvisations, and offer an insight into Eve Matin’s future debut album. ‘Chiqchipa’ turns the harp into a drum. Rolling fingers and tapping the frame all over the place, the track is a rhythm machine early on, before giving way to an ethereal wandering of inquisitive harps and floaty vocalisations. We have truly moved from the forest to the glade. There are moments of true beauty, including what sounds like a muted plectrum glissando in reverse! ‘Pilgrimage’ is possibly the most direct and accessible track on the release. Eve’s use of reverb lets her rhythmic strikes ring out like church bells in this uplifting, exotic piece.

Weilding the harp like a lifeforce possessed, this is an awe-inspiring and often challenging deep dive into what sounds a harp can stretch to. Eve Matin doesn’t tread lightly. She goes all in, and that fearlessness may be too overwhelming and harsh for some. The harp has proven to rock out in many artists’ hands before. With Eve Matin, the harp is smashing together the avant-garde, the Latin fire of rock, and the elixir of love and utopia. All that passion spills out into every frenzied note. You just have to surrender to the flow to really appreciate it.

Recommended track: The day that shall not be followed by night

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