"The music of David Moore's Bing & Ruth has typically resembled cloud systems, ocean waves, swarming shoals of fish. In the spirit of compositions like Terry Riley's In C and Steve Reich's Music for 18 Musicians, each of his pieces stirs diminutive patterns into unfathomably vast forces. But over the long sweep of his career, Moore gives the impression of an artist steadily clearing away cobwebs, determined to get at the essence of something."
"There were 11 players on 2010's , his post-classical ensemble's breakout album, and then seven on 2014's Tomorrow Was the Golden Age; by 2020's somber , he had stripped his materials down to Farfisa organ, clarinet, and double bass. Moore recently dropped the Bing & Ruth alias for a duo album with Steve Gunn, unadorned piano and acoustic guitar twining like lithe green vines."
"Using his own name while working with Gunn "provided a freedom that I got really addicted to, and then I just wanted to keep going," he recently said. That might sound counterintuitive; you might assume that using a pseudonym, escaping one's given identity, was a surer path to creative freedom. But Moore found something there, and you can hear as much on Graze the Bell."
David Moore reduces his sound over time from large ensembles to intimate pairings and now to solo piano. He progressively removed instruments, moving from 11 players to seven to a trio and then to duo work. He dropped the Bing & Ruth name to record with Steve Gunn and then released Graze the Bell under his own name. The album focuses on solo piano across nine simple pieces that function like conversations with himself and searches for an unarticulated truth. Moore's structures are open-ended and patient, favoring sparse gestures and delayed tonal centers that resist easy resolution.
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