Kenny Dickenson - Les Rivieres

We finally made it: BEWITH100LP! And what better way for a reissue label to celebrate such a  landmark catalogue number than to give it to a record of new music. We couldn’t resist when the  artist is Official Be With Family Member Kenny Dickenson and when the music is his lovely, lovely  score to French-Vietnamese artist Mai Hua's 2020 documentary film “Les Rivières”. If you enjoy the  more minimal, intimate piano of the likes of Nils Frahm or John Carroll Kirby’s solo work, you’re  certain to fall for this beautiful album. 

Taking six years to make, Mai’s film explores what happened when she brought her dying grandmother to  France, pulling together four generations of women from the same family. Kenny’s score accompanies all the  pretty things, sad things, dirty, beautiful, happy, broken and reborn moments of these women’s experiences. 

The whole score is built around delicate, sparkling piano motifs. At times they’re joined by cello and  complemented with ambient chords and other flourishes. It’s a very particular palette that Kenny and Mai 

established early on, as Kenny explains: “We had agreed on a particular sonic aesthetic early on in the  process - to use specific and relatively minimal instrumentation, reflecting the intimacy of the picture. So  piano and cello were quite prominent in instructing a sense of space and immediacy. Until I had to get the  junkyard percussion out… ”