Review Summary: A fearless debut for a peerless vet...
Much to my delight, there’s been a number of high-profile artists trying their hand at either incorporating classical arrangements into their sound or even straight up composing symphonic works as stand-alone releases within the past few years. Last year saw the release of Rosalia’s wildly popular operatic pop album
Lux, while many don’t know that Wu Tang’s RZA released
A Ballet Through Mud the previous year in 2024. Combine those with Raye making the interesting choice to structure this year’s
This Music May Contain Hope like a high school musical and you’re getting the point; classical music might be having a moment right now. Perhaps then it shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise that British sound maestro Floating Points (Sam Shepard) chose to hook up with the San Francisco Ballet Orchestra to write and compose his first ballet
Mere Mortals, a reimagined origin story of Pandora. Shepard’s iteration of the tale chooses to portray the titular character as a representation of curiosity and change rather than a force of chaos through an artful marriage of electronics and sharp, bold orchestral passages. The artistic liberty Shepard takes with the story is actualized wonderfully, but it’s the expertly balanced composition that lifts
Mere Mortals from a mere experiment with the conductor’s wand to a Floating Points ballet.
And this is an important distinction to make,
Mere Mortals isn’t Floating Points Ft. The San Francisco Ballet Orchestra, this is a Sam Shepard composition
via the San Francisco Ballet Orchestra. The piece begins with “Fire” and “Hope” recounting Prometheus’ gift to humanity. Shepard’s ear for composing is readily obvious as the swirling strings that signify humanity’s hope that came with the gift are sharply dashed in a cacophony of harsh metronomic percussion and discordant violins in “Movement 3- Rage of the Gods”. It’s a capital “M” moment in a piece full of moments that are immediately arresting to the listener while simultaneously propelling the narrative forward with bold vision. Shepard’s ability to marry his Floating Points work with bombastic classical instrumentation is a key component in the triumph of
Mere Mortals and “Movement 4- Zeus’ Command” sees this marriage first come into clear view. Shepard’s signature pointillistic production style serves as the perfect accoutrement for the multiple swells and dips within
Mere Mortals’ runtime but is used sparingly for fantastic effect. This modern texturing serves the music and the narrative very well, and helps Shepard’s reimagining of Pandora’s story gel within listeners minds.
“Movement 5- Pandora’s Creation” is where
Mere Mortals shines brightest. Appropriately serving as one of the more narratively rich pieces on the album, Shepard evokes a ton of emotion through an almost John Williams-esque use of brass and strings that are heavy with tension and an adventurous spirit. It’s a piece glowing with confidence by its creator and shows that Shepard wasn’t afraid of putting himself out there with daring musical choices, especially for a first-time composer. John Williams is actually evoked a few times throughout
Mere Mortals, with “Movement 6- Gift From the Gods” sounding absolutely Coruscantian at points. After the creation of Pandora, Shepard continues to play on themes of tension and uneasiness as Pandora takes in the world around her. As an fully audio experience,
Mere Mortals certainly loses a lot in translation during the back half but active listeners will still be able to appreciate the musical choices as well as the progression of the story.
Mere Mortals is a remarkable piece of work, its boldness in creative phrasing while not becoming campy or tropy is hard to overstate for a first-time composer, even one as (apparently) gifted as Floating Points. Him using his own back catalog as a thematic tool to inject a fresh, technological bent to a ballet about the creation of Pandora is a stroke of genius. And now I fear that between this and scoring shows like “Lazarus”, Sam Shepard may be spending more time in front of an orchestra then behind a DAW but honestly, that doesn’t sound so bad either.
