Below Sea Level
Simon Scott
12K Records.
SCQ Rating: 80%
Simon Scott’s first
release on the 12K imprint deserves mention firstly for being his most
personal. Below Sea Level is the culmination of two years the former Slowdive
drummer spent visiting the Fens marshland in eastern England – a spot both
agriculturally controversial and sentimental to Scott’s childhood – to track
field recordings and expose the musicality of his memories. The results lay as
the backbone to these seven tracks, over which Scott blurred guitar and
synthesizer, in real time, during his stays there.
As well as
representing Scott’s childhood and ancestral ties, Below Sea Level proves a
remarkable merger of purely organic soundscapes and leftfield electronics; in
short, because it’s often difficult to dissect which is which. Tracks two and
three (note: each track is numerical as sequenced) bleed like reedy drones
under the wavering of looping harmonics and swathes of digital backwash. But
just as often, Scott steps back from the ambient tussle and lets the landscape
speak back in birdcalls, amphibian croaks, water ripples, and nearby machinery.
The reality of Scott’s location causes a virtual standstill during track four,
overwhelming any traditional song-form, whereas it weaves a bubbling catharsis
into track seven’s celestial electronics. Best yet are the tracks where Scott
fingerpicks some guitar into the aural scenery, providing bucolic timbres of
psychedelia that are simple but inspiring.
To those few
listeners aware of the territory’s conflicted history, Below Sea Level will
likely plumb deeper emotional depths but even oblivious fans should ascribe to
the record’s stark and seasonal affinity. In some cases, Scott seems to be
playing for the present moment, merely coexisting with a complicated patch of
nature. In its most satisfying moments, however, Below Sea Level sounds like a poignant
farewell.
No comments:
Post a Comment