Centre

Schofield and Safdie share a fascination with specific parts of the museum, such as the ramp leading into the museum, with Safdie himself describing his desire for the ramp to function as a “kind of procession” leading participants to the unique environment within. Glass Gallery begins in much the same way. The album’s opener, “Central Atrium,” starts with a simple melodic motif, repeated throughout the track under the swell and fade of rich bass notes and warbling, string-like pads, serving a similar function to the same room in the museum itself, that is, an introduction to the state of receptivity unique to the museum. Many of the songs on the album share in their composition a similar logic to that of architecture; Schofield uses arpeggiation as a means of structure and physicality, while sweeping harmonic chords communicate the open sensation of being surrounded by light and glass. Meanwhile, the song “Getty Garden,” while inspired by installation artist Robert Irwin’s Central Garden at the Getty Center in Los Angeles, reflects Schofield’s fascination with beautiful architecture in general without seeming tangential. Glass Gallery excels in simplicity. Listening to Schofield perform in the right museum would be a unique meeting of sound and built form, one that might encourage a new understanding of how architecture and music share similar fundamentals of structure and space.